


Double Bluff

by RiaZendira



Series: House of Cards [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:39:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 25,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaZendira/pseuds/RiaZendira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>US Marshal Anthony DiNozzo has never been a big fan of kids or bad guys. One of those things changes suddenly when, after overhearing the wrong phone call, he finds saving a particular little girl from the bad guys rapidly becoming his mission in life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Those Who Listen at Keyholes

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to many people. I blame kathana_grey for the basic challenge of starting this story and some bits of its plot as this was originally a bunny she basically threw at me and dared me to make work. There were several people who months ago helped me to beta the first parts of this and then for various reasons had to move on, thank you for all your efforts, darlings! And to Monica and Gemma for betaing, enthusiasm, commitment through real life crazies, and generally being darned helpful. Thanks also to everyone at the NCIS fangirl gathering who told me to go ahead and write this already.

US Marshal Anthony DiNozzo had never wanted to have kids. He really really didn’t. He just wasn’t up for that particular type of responsibility. But he wasn’t about to let a young girl get killed either. Or himself for that matter. Looking in the rear view mirror at the little girl laying asleep across the back seat, dried tear streaks across her face, he silently vowed to make sure they both got through this no matter what he had to do to make it happen. How did his life get so complicated, so quickly? 

It was only this morning that this whole thing had started, but he’d suspected his boss of corruption for months. It wasn’t any one thing that gave the man away, just a long string of slightly suspicious things that had led to the deaths of a few former mafia witnesses that no one really missed that much anyway. The trials they’d testified in had been over for years, after all.   
  
He’d convinced himself it was just his cop paranoia kicking in and told his gut to shut up until he had real evidence. Who was he to accuse a man with over twenty years of good service record anyway? Less than two years at the job, playboy, frat boy, irrepressible flirt, Tony? Oh yeah, they’d listen to his suspicions, sure they would. Then they’d probably investigate and fire him and send his boss a letter of consolation for assigning Tony there in first place.     
  
So Tony kept his mouth tightly closed on his speculations and played his role as brainlessly as possible at the office. Some days he wondered how many people questioned how he’d even managed to get a job as a US Marshal. Just last week he’d overheard someone asking that very question out loud.   
  
Luckily, playing dumb paid off before getting fired for supposed stupidity did. Today he’d finally caught his boss giving someone a tip about a witness’ location over the phone. Later he’d curse himself for not hearing anything more helpful like the witness’ name or time. All he got was a place. A place he knew wasn’t part of any of his open cases. He’d waited so long for this moment and now that he finally had something to work with he wasn’t going to let the opportunity to prove his suspicions pass him by.   
  
A few moments of frantic thought, centered mostly on his lack of anything to utilize except personal resources, decided his course of action for him. He grabbed his coat, weapon, and badge and fled the office. Taking a nondescript bland colored sedan, he drove to the location he had heard, praying all the while that he’d get there in time to actually do something. He wasn’t sure whether that something would be to blast the bad guy, or to protect the witness.   
  
Twenty minutes later, arriving at a cute well-cared-for house in a DC suburb, he cased the place in a quick drive-by and decided the best approach to getting more information was probably the direct one. Ditching the sedan around the corner, he walked up to the house like he belonged there. Ringing the doorbell, he adjusted his facial expression to the appropriate neutrality so that he could roll with whatever avenue seemed easiest if the door was answered.   
  
The door opened a few seconds after Tony’s knock to reveal one of Tony’s least favorite fellow marshals, Paul Trip. Plastering an ingratiating smile on his face, Tony greeted his coworker,

“Trip.”

“DiNozzo,” Paul looked surprised, but covered it quickly, “Boss sent you?"

"Yup, good ol' Tony, always ready to step in in a pinch. Rafferty got food poisoning." Tossing out the name of the Marshal that had been in the room with the boss during the phone call Tony had overheard should help at least until Rafferty actually showed up.

"You're here for the kid?" Paul looked doubtful.

"Yeah. She's well behaved, right? I'm not so good with kids."  

"Hasn't been trouble yet. Here's the location to transfer her at. You're meeting up with the kid's mom who just finished giving her statement." 

Tony couldn't quite figure out Paul's expression as he said that. A little girl walked up behind Paul and peered up at Tony. Trip looked down at her and then looked back up at Tony.

"Then you take 'em both to the safe house." Paul looked like he was trying to convey reassurance to the little girl, but Tony saw a feral edge to Trip's smile and acted quickly to cover how disconcerted he was by it.

"Hey little one, what's your name?" he asked as he crouched down to look eye to eye with the girl.

"Kelly Gibbs," she said, "but Mommy says I have to pick a new name soon. She says it's special 'cause people don't usually get to pick their own names. I like Kelly though, the K part especially. I don't want a new name. Mommy says I need one to be safe. What's your name?"

"Anthony DiNozzo, but you can call me Tony, Princess."

"Have you ever changed your name, Marshal Tony?"

"No... I- uh, haven't had to. But if I did, I think it would be cool to pick my own. We can talk about this more later. Maybe I can help you pick out a name. But, right now, it's time to go. Do you have a bag you need to get?"

"Yes."

"Well, go get it, and then we'll go get your mommy." Kelly turned and ran through one of the doors behind her. Tony turned back to where Trip was still standing next to the front door.

"Didn't figure you for this duty, DiNozzo, didn't think it was your kind of thing." Trip had that feral look again.

"Well, you know me, easily bored with routine." Tony shot Paul a wide, completely insincere grin that was all teeth. He really had to get the girl and get out of here before Trip realized that Tony wasn't just playing Good Cop. 

Just in time, Kelly came running back into the room with an undersized pink backpack clutched in her hand.

"Ready, Princess?" Tony asked as he took the bag from her hand. She nodded. He scooped her up and strode towards the door. A quick nod to Trip was all it took and they were home free and out the door. 

“You take care of the little Princess, DiNozzo!” Trip called out after them, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Oh how he hated that man. As soon as the door shut Tony sped up and made his way as quickly as possible to the car around the corner. 

Suddenly he was terrified for the girl’s mother.

He had to get to the girl's mom before whatever was supposed to happen did. Clearly if the girl was supposed to have been picked up by Rafferty, the attack couldn't have been scheduled to happen before they met up with her mom. Unless Rafferty was a whole lot more corrupt than he thought. 

Was there honesty anyone who could pose as a US Marshal and actually be a contract killer who'd off a six year old? If he’d had to answer that question an hour ago he would have said no, but now he wasn’t so sure. He didn't want to think so. He hoped not anyway. He hoped he still had a chance to save the girl's mom too.

Strapping Kelly into the back seat of the sedan, he pulled out the piece of paper with the address on it that Trip had handed him. If he floored it, he could be there inside of a half hour. Tossing one more look in the rear view mirror at Kelly, he smiled reassuringly, put his foot to the gas pedal hard and prayed for green lights all the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/41431.html where more author's notes are available


	2. If I Didn’t Have Bad Luck, I’d Have No Luck at All

He didn't make it on time of course. He couldn’t be sure what line of dominoes had been set off,  but he figured Trip must have talked to his boss, or Rafferty must have shown up scant minutes later than Tony had at the house. Something must have changed the plan. All he knew that day was that he was too late to save Kelly's mom. As he pulled up at the rendezvous point, he was barely in time to see a pretty red-headed woman just closing the door as she got into the back of the black SUV. A black SUV that had agents standing with studied casualness a short, but in retrospect, telling, distance away from it. Before he could turn off his car, the SUV exploded in a ball of fire. Tony watched as the agents dove for cover just in time to miss being caught in the blast.  

Fuck, there is no way they didn't know that explosion was coming, Tony thought as he desperately reviewed his options. And there was no chance the red-haired lady had survived. Dammit. He yanked the steering wheel around and crashed over a curb pulling out of the parking lot. He didn't know where he could go to keep Kelly safe, but here just wasn't an option. 

Any hope he had that Kelly hadn't seen her mom getting into the van before the explosion was eradicated as a wail of anguish came from behind him.

"MOMMY! Mommmmy!" He had to get somewhere safe as soon as possible. There was no way he could even start to try and calm Kelly down while driving. His heart-beat pounding loud in his his head, he searched his mind desperately for somewhere he could go. Not back to the office: there were at least four Marshals in on this, plus his boss. There was no telling who he could trust in his department. 

He had to assume that Kelly was still in danger. Her mother had probably been the larger threat to whoever was orchestrating all this, but Kelly was old enough that if she'd seen whatever her mother had seen, she would be considered a loose end.... Oh shit,    
Tony   
was now a loose end. He'd seen too much by far. No, the office wasn't going to cut it as far as safe places went.

The surreal feeling of being the star in the action movie of the week didn't in any way diminish as he realized there was a car tailing them. 

"Princess, Kelly, please stop yelling." He pleaded with Kelly as he tried to remember if there were any really convenient alleys to ditch a tail in this part of town. Oh god, what could he possibly say to her? There was nothing that would make what had just happened anything less than terrifying and devastating. But the yelling really wasn't helping his ability to concentrate on getting them both out of this alive. 

"Kelly! See that black car behind us?" Tony tossed out desperately, "I need you to tell me if it gets any closer to us. It's really important. We're not safe right now. We need to get rid of that car so we can be safe." The little girl looked at him through the rear-view mirror with terror painted on her face and suddenly clamped her mouth shut. Half lifting herself up on one arm, she twisted in her seat to watch the car behind them.    

"They're getting closer! Go faster!" Her voice trembled with fear and rang with command in equal parts.

"Can do, sweetheart." Tony finally spotted the alley he wanted and flipped the car into a turn that probably had it up on two wheels at some point as he changed course faster than the pursuing car could react. Powering down the alley, he shot into a parking garage on the other end, pulling through a few floors and going out the little used side exit he remembered from getting lost in this same garage once. Lucky he’d gotten lost that time, it was going to save his and Kelly’s lives this time. 

Kelly was nearly silent behind him, only the occasional half choked sob could be heard.

Okay, first things first, lose the tail. Done. Next things next... ditch the government-issue car and find somewhere safe to be. Who did he know that would hide him and a small child for however long it took to figure out how much of a corrupt conspiracy his department was? Preferably someone that knew more about comforting small children than Tony did.  Who did he know that had resources and could get him out of the state if need be?

Think, Anthony, think. There was no one at the department who wouldn’t go directly to his boss. He didn’t have family in town, or much at all. His former mentor had just bugged out to Florida retirement. Fuck. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Tony muttered under this breath. Bright eyes caught his accusingly in the mirror. 

“Sorry, Princess. I’m just a little... worried right now.” Shit, he really had to watch his language. Not that that should even register on his list of things to worry about right now. Clenching his teeth, he struggled to restrain the sudden burst of hysterical laughter that threatened to escape. There was a child in the back seat of his car, they were running from god only knows who, to god only knew where, for reasons he didn’t fully know but he could guess at. And he was ‘a little worried?’ and worried about his    
language   
of all things? Oh yeah, he was doing really well taking care of this kid already.  

The weight of Kelly’s gaze via the mirror didn’t lessen any as he pondered options. Well now he knew why no one ever believed he was good at his job, here he was, a US Marshal, going mildly nuts over having to deal with being a fugitive and taking care of a kid at the same time. Give him either one, and he was sure it wouldn’t be too much, both together though... there was no one he knew that could handle- Abby! Abby always knew what to do, particularly when it involved convoluted plans and/ or small children. Better still, no one he worked with even knew that he knew Abby. Tony looked up and met Kelly’s gaze. 

“It’s okay, Princess, I have a plan.” Now he just had to get them to Abby’s without anyone finding them. Right.    
Literally   
, the small snarky slightly hysterical voice in his head thought as he turned the car in the direction of the nearest entrance ramp to 495. He could do this, one save at a time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/41720.html where more author's notes are available.


	3. Goth Angel With a Fake ID

Two hours, a lot of towns, and one appropriated (it wasn’t stolen dammit, they’d get it back) car and a short metro train and bus ride later, Tony and Kelly were all the way on the other side of DC, walking the short distance from the bus stop to Abby’s rambling old Victorian rental house. 

Kelly had been quiet since shortly after their exit from the first car, only interacting when Tony required her to move. Considering Tony was exhausted, he was pretty sure Kelly was only moments away from a total crash. He’d been carrying her since they’d gotten on the Metro, and right now was thanking his meager luck that Abby didn’t live too many blocks away from a Metro bus stop.

Dragging tired feet and tired child up the last few steps to Abby’s front door, he pounded the knocker, remembering from his first visit here that the doorbell had never worked. He really hoped Abby was home. Neither of her roommates would be nearly as helpful, and they’d both think he was crazy showing up with child in tow. 

The door swung open and a delighted voice greeted them,   
  
“Tony!  What are you doing here? I thought we were going out on Friday. Oh- who’s this?” Abby peered at Kelly’s dazed face. Kelly raised her head and peered back with tear filled eyes. 

“Oookaaaay. Never mind, don’t ask questions, Abigail, invite your clearly exhausted guests inside. Come in, both of you!” Abby waved her hands expansively a bit like she was trying to help land a small plane and shooed them through the doorway. 

Under Abby’s direction, Tony carried Kelly upstairs and into the office across from Abby’s bedroom. He laid her down on the futon and Abby covered her up with a black blanket covered in purple sparkling vampire bats. Kelly appeared to be completely asleep. 

“Come on, we can probably talk in my room if we’re quiet, and she can see us if she wakes up.” Abby whispered as she moved quickly across the hall. Sitting down on her bed, she turned to watch as Tony followed wearily and sank to the floor by her feet. 

“Abby, you don’t even know...” Tony began and trailed off, unsure how to manage to explain the events of the past few hours.

“Only if you don’t tell me, Tony. What’s going on? She isn’t yours, is she?” It was amazing how she managed to sound supportive and confused all at once. Tony raised his head. 

“Abbs, remember how I was worried my boss wasn’t a good guy? Ha! Turns out I may have been understating the problem. I think about half my department aren’t good guys. And I know they’re after us. Abbs... I only got her, I couldn’t save her mom. Her mom...”

Tony laid his head on Abby’s knee and grabbed tight to her outstretched hand. He knew he had to pull himself together and get this show on the road, every minute they stayed here would be one in their pursuer’s favor. But he needed a short time out, to stop and just  be for a bit, because he was damned sure he wouldn’t get this chance again for a long time. He’d signed up to be a good guy, and he was going to save Kelly and figure out a way to expose the criminal’s masquerading as officers of the law in his department. Right after this not so regularly scheduled mini breakdown. 

“I’ll help, Tony, it’ll be okay, just tell me the details.” Abby petted his hair and squeezed his hand right back. Tony gave a mental head-shake and forced himself to focus. 

“She’s a witness, her mom was too. Her mom had just given her preliminary testimony, they were supposed to be going to a safe house and on their way out of town. I overheard a phone call that didn’t sound right. I got to her before they could, was taking her to get her mom, we’d just gotten there... she saw it, Abbs. Car bomb. The agents knew it was coming. They knew we were coming. They came after us, I lost the tail, ditched the car, came here by way of three means of transportation and two half false trails. We should be okay for a few hours... but we need out of here fast, Abbs.” 

“Oh my god, Tony! That’s... whoa. Okay. Okay, we can do this. That means two IDs, some place to go, and cash. And a car I think. Or maybe we should put you on a plane? Do you think we can do that if we get you there fast enough?”

“I don’t know, Abbs. If they can use department resources then there’s likely an alert out already, they may even accuse me of kidnapping. If they try to keep it all under wraps and avoid using department resources, then we might be okay for a while. I’m just not sure what story they can tell, or how high up this goes.” 

“Okay, so a plane is probably out, too risky. But if we get you out soon, roadblocks shouldn’t be an issue yet. Particularly if you avoid highways ‘til you’re a ways away. Where can you go though?”

“I think... Abbs I think the only person I know who could possibly help is my dad. I think for a little girl he’ll help me without tossing me out on sight, and I think he’s got the money and connections to help me pull this off long term. The thing is, I might need to hide for a long time if this goes badly. Either way, I can’t pull a Dr. Richard Kimble with Kelly with me. It’s not like I can do the investigating by myself, and there isn’t really anyone else I can leave her with and know she’ll be safe. If she had other immediate family, they would have been with her or her mom.” Abby nodded.

“Okay, so that means we need to get you a car and enough resources to make it at least a ten hour drive and some leeway on the other end. This is not impossible, Tony.”  She leaned down and hugged him tightly. Muffled words came from where Tony’s face was half smothered against her shoulder,

“Right. Okay. One fugitive for justice run coming up. I can do this.” Abby pulled back and smiled down at him, standing up and pulling on his hand. Tony rose and they stood facing each other. Abby tilted her head and looked at Tony quizzically,

“Okay, Tony. I have one very important question for you....” Tony looked up at her expectantly, ready to provide any information she might need. “How do you feel about going blond?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/41917.html where more author's notes are available


	4. Blonds Don't Have More Fun

"Found it!" A triumphant voice echoed out from the bathroom. Moments later a bouncing Abby appeared in the doorway holding a small cardboard box with an overly glammed up picture of a model with nearly blinding shining blond locks on it. "I knew I had some left over from the last time I had to bleach my hair before dying it purple. Come on into the bathroom, we're going to have to do this over the tub."

Tony obligingly rose from where he was seated on the bed and followed Abby back into the bathroom, pausing only to take a quick glance across the hall at the still sleeping Kelly.

"Abbs, how long does this take?"

"About 20 minutes- ish. You've never dyed your hair before?"

"Ah, no. Well okay, I've done it with spray on color before in college. School colors... and one prank."

"You'll have to tell me about that sometime. Take off your shirt," Abby ordered firmly.

"Do I have to?"

"Do you want a shirt to wear out of here? I don't think I have anything in your size. I'm just being practical here, Tony. Getting to see your sexy chest has nothing to do with my motivations at all. Honestly."

Tony reluctantly removed his shirt and tossed it out the door at the bed.

"What next?"

"Stick your head in there and get it wet, I'll set up the dye." Abby pulled various containers from the box and started mixing things, looking a bit too mad scientist for Tony's tastes. Tony bowed to the inevitable and stuck his hair under the tap. 

A short while later his head was covered in smelly sticky goo and Abby was leaning over to check the time on her watch where it rested on the sink counter, her plastic glove covered hands held out and up in front of her.

"Oh crap." Tony looked at her, question evident in his eyes. "I forgot your eyebrows!" Tony groaned.

"Abby... please tell me this process doesn't end in manscaping." Abby giggled.

"No, none of that, I promise. But we should wash out your hair now, then do your eyebrows too. I think we should also wake up Kelly and do her hair now. I don't have another box of this, and it won't stay good for that long. Plus, you can't stay here much longer."

Tony sighed, "No, no we can't. Abbs, how do I wash this out without getting it everywhere?"

"Oh, just take a shower. I'll go see if Kelly can be woken up while you do that. You know where the towels are." Abby carefully peeled the gloves off her hands and placed them beside the sink then turned and left the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Tony stared at his oddly slicked hair in the mirror and smiled at how bizarre his life had suddenly become. Oh well, at least he was pretty good at undercover.

"I don't hear a shower, Mister!" Abby's voice teasingly chided him through the closed door.

"Okay, okay. Shower." Tony glared at the door and turned to take his shower.

***************************************

  
Outside the door, Abby nodded as she heard the water turn on. She walked to the bedroom doorway and looked across the hall at Kelly. Tony would probably be another few minutes in the shower, she had time to call her friend Todd and double check his arrival time. Oops, maybe not. Kelly was stirring. Abby strode across the hall and knelt down next to the futon.

"Hey, Kelly. Are you awake, sweetie?" Kelly rolled toward her and grabbed Abby's shirt, strong little arms pulling Abby down for a desperate hug. "Whoa. Hey, it's okay. It’s okay." Abby knew the lie in her words an instant after she said them, but what else could she say?

"No. 'S not," a muffled voice replied from where Kelly's face was hidden in the front of Abby's t-shirt.

"Okay, you're right. It's not. But we'll make it as okay as we can." Abby returned, voice firm. She reached her arms around the little girl and lifted her up off the futon. "First thing we have to do is get you somewhere safer and far away from the bad guys." The muffled voice didn't so much reply as vaguely mumble sounds at her. God, this poor little girl just didn't deserve this. It just broke her heart. Well, she'd do what she could to fix it. 

Resolutely, Abby turned and carried her sad burden towards the bathroom and her new temporary identity. "Okay, sweetie, first we're going to have to dye your hair so you don't look the same, we already did Tony's hair..."

*****************************************

  
Abby watched Tony as he looked back and forth from the living room mirror where his new blond hair shone back at him, to the still exhausted little girl he was holding and her newly platinum strands. Kelly had stayed awake long enough to stay sitting upright for her dye job and a speedy photo, but right after had nearly fallen over mid-step. Tony had scooped her up and so far refused to let her go as Abby whirl-winded around her house trying to finalize their travel plans and the required precautions. At the moment, Abby wasn’t too worried about them driving to Tony’s father’s house, as there were no signs of pursuit in the news. Abby was worried about what the fact that their pursuers were doing so under the radar of official investigation would mean for Tony and Kelly if they were caught though. 

The doorbell ringing caused her to stop mid-stride and run to the front door. After a hurried conversation with Todd, she handed over the photos she'd taken and a moment later, marched back to the living room.

"Okay Tony, that was Todd, he's got your IDs, I just gave him the photos so he's gone to his van to put them all together. You're going to have to take my car, I don't know any other way to get you one at this point. I've faked up some papers to go with that too, and I've got a friend who will make sure the DMV records and all that match up. Don't ask me how, okay? You don't want to know." Abby turned and left the room to get the bags she'd packed.

"Here's a new bag of stuff for Kelly, though it's mostly just sleep clothing, I didn't have anything small enough for her to really wear. You’ll have to stop at a Walmart or something when you're out of range. There are some snacks and cash too. And a map in the car. Can you think of anything else that we need to do before you leave? Oh, and I'm not sure if Kelly is big enough to drive around without a car seat in all the states you're going to be driving through... so you might want to pick one of those up as soon as you can safely stop." Was there anything else? Think, Abigail, think. Tony usually didn't do well with kids.... What else would he not think of?

"Tony, remember to tell her what's going on. I think she'll be less scared if she knows what's happening. In general though, don't give her really scary details." That was good advice, right? She tried to remember everything she'd ever read about childhood trauma. 

"And Tony, your IDs make her your daughter so that you won't have any issues with why she's with you. You may want to make up a back story to go with your new IDs though. You're Toby Grant, she's Aurora Grant. I hoped that way if she forgets and calls you Tony, it sounds close enough to pass." Tony stared at her.

"What?"

"Why'd you give her the name Aurora, Abbs?"

"Oh... well you're the one that kept calling her 'Princess'..." Abby trailed off as Tony looked at her uncomprehendingly, "You know... Sleeping Beauty? Remember, she goes into hiding too. I thought you could use it as a story to convince her it's a good name, since she wasn't awake enough to pick her own." Tony smiled and shook his head.

"Abbs, you're amazing. Just amazing. You pull all this off in under two hours and you're thinking of reasons for new names from Disney movies. Don't ever change. Thank you so much, for..." Tony trailed off, his voice tired, and waved the hand not holding Kelly in a gesture that somehow managed to convey ‘all this’.

“Well of course I’m amazing. Who else could help you do totally illegal but completely necessary things on a moment’s notice?” Abby grinned. “Now Toby, let’s just get you and Miss Aurora to the car and grab your new IDs from Todd.” Tony hefted Kelly higher in his arms then freed an arm to lift the two small bags. 

Abby opened the front door and led them out onto the porch. Moments later she was watching sadly as tail lights drove off down her street, crossing the fingers of both hands behind her back and hoping hard for the best for Tony and Kelly.    


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/42979.html where more author's notes are available.


	5. It’s Dark and We’re Wearing Sunglasses

Tony glanced back again at Kelly’s sleeping form draped across the back seat. She’d slept soundly for the past several hours that he’d spent driving, winding his way slowly out of the DC metro area, up past Baltimore, and then west. West, back to the father who he really hoped would actually speak to him for Kelly’s sake. 

Well, at the very least, Kelly was something in his favor. He might not actually be her father, but the fact that he was managing to act like one should impress his own father. Tony tried out stories in his head as he drove, wondering if the truth would actually work or if he should just tell his dad a convenient lie as to who Kelly was. Would he actually be more or less likely to help if Tony claimed Kelly was his? Would his dad even believe that it was possible she was his? 

Tony was fairly certain the dad he remembered from back when they actually spoke to each other frequently would help them either way just because Kelly was a kid in trouble. Hopefully the fact that he was mad at Tony still, would have no impact. Hopefully. They’d been talking a little more in the past year he thought. Maybe he was almost forgiven?

The road was endless in front of him, the sky long since dark. If he drove all night, they’d probably get to his dad’s by early morning though. Right in time for brunch perhaps. He was tired, but the coffee he’d had at Abby’s, followed by the coffee she’d packed for him, which could be followed by the caffeine pills she’d also packed for him if needed would keep him awake enough for them to get there in one piece. 

He wasn’t actually too worried about being caught now, they were surprisingly far from the radius that might have been set up to catch them. So long as he didn’t stop and have Kelly seen, any alert that might have been put out since they left Abby’s would probably miss them. He hoped. He held on to the hope that his boss hadn’t managed to mobilize department force in time to do much good either, considering they hadn’t been hindered by a roadblock. Maybe he’d been overreacting by skipping town? Maybe an investigation was already underway? Maybe someone had already taken this out of his hands? Wouldn’t that be great?

He briefly pondered the fantasy of someone fixing everything, a wonderland of quick investigation, arrests, the whole department being cleaned out in one swoop. Why he could be back at work by Monday! Yeah right. Government agencies didn’t work that way. There was no way he’d be safe for months. And no way to hand over his responsibility for Kelly until he knew of someone safe to hand her over to. Which considering there were at least two more agents working with the bad guys than he’d already spotted before picking up Kelly, wasn’t a chance he was going to take. 

When he’d signed up for working in law enforcement, he hadn’t expected to have to rescue small children in quite this manner. And even though he’d always been good at undercover work, he’d never gone undercover as a dad before. Tony sighed, shook his head abruptly, and tried to focus on the road again. A good portion of the trip was behind him... just eight or so hours to go and one innocent princess to rescue. 

****************************************

  
Tony took another slug of the now cold, gritty coffee and glanced behind him to check on Kelly. She’d been making small noises the past few miles. They were much closer to their destination, but there were still a few hours left and Tony had hoped Kelly would sleep right through them. It didn’t look like his luck was holding though, as her small noises were starting to become louder and contain almost words. Suddenly the noise went from almost to actual words, a panicked shriek cutting through the quiet air and echoing within the small space of the car.

“Mommy! MOMMY!” Kelly sat bolt upright, having shocked herself awake, and shocked Tony silent. Her panicked voice changed to a low whimper.

“Mommy...,” she choked out, her arms coming around to hug herself tightly. Tony suddenly realized he hadn’t been paying much attention to the road the past few moments and tore his eyes away to focus in front of the car just in time to pull them back into the proper lane. Looking ahead, he spotted a small pull off area and decided maybe a short stop was in order.

“Princess, we’re going to stop right up here and have a snack and maybe walk around for a minute, sound good?” 

“Okay.” Her tear streaked face rose and she looked him straight in the eyes through the mirror’s reflection. Wow, Tony thought to himself, this little girl was just amazing. From nightmare to functional in less than the time it took Tony to wake up with coffee in the morning. At least with all the kids he could have been stuck in this situation with, he got the one who seemed to deal just fine with his inexperience at child management. 

Tony pulled the car off the road and to the very back of the pull off area, shutting off the engine and turning around to look at Kelly. She looked right back at him, lost but more aware looking than she had seemed back at Abby’s house. 

“Princess, do you want to go for a walk or have a snack?”

“Marshal Tony, my name is not ‘Princess,’” a weary, but tart, voice informed him seriously. 

“Ah no... actually right now, it’s ‘Aurora’... which, in my defense, is a princess’ name.” Tony informed her seriously right back, trying to put a slight tease in his tone.

“What?” She looked at him, flabbergasted. Tony reached down onto the seat in front of him and picked up the ID and passed it between the seats to her. She reached out a hand and took it, staring down at it with consternation. Tony couldn’t help but smile, she was so very adult in her confusion. 

“I thought I got to pick my name...,” she looked back up at him, tears welling up in her eyes. Damn, how did things keep going from okay to threats of tears so fast?

“Hey, hey, Princess, it’s okay, you’ll get to pick your name once we’re more settled, this was just to get us where we’re going. Abby picked it for you, she thought you’d like it because it’s Sleeping Beauty’s name...,” Tony trailed off as he saw none of this was helping at all. 

“But, muh-mommy, suh-said, I’d get to pick,” she sobbed out, tears back again full force. Tony looked wildly around for options that would defuse the situation and came up with nothing. Reaching over the console between the seats, he unbuckled the crying girl and pulled her up into the front seat.  Hugging her to his chest, he decided to take Abby’s advice, it couldn’t screw things up anymore than he already had.

“Princess- Kelly, I’m going to keep you safe. If your mommy could be here to keep you safe, you know she would be. Since she can’t be here, I’m going to do it for her. I’m going to be your daddy for right now and I promise to keep you safe from the bad men.” 

“I HAVE a daddy!” Kelly growled. 

“I don’t know where he is, sweetie. I didn’t get to get the case file on your mommy and you before I came to try and rescue you. I just knew there were bad men, and I heard one of them talking about something bad they were going to do. I came to get you before they could. I didn’t even know about your mom before I heard about it from the Marshal that was with you. As soon as we’re safe, I promise I’ll figure out where your daddy is. I promise.” Tony took a moment to pick his words. 

“Kelly, right now, we have to get as far away from the bad guys as we can, and get somewhere safe. And the only safe place I could think of is at my dad’s, we’re almost there already, only a few more hours... so how about you can borrow him as your granddad for a while too? We’ll keep you safe, we’ll figure out a way to get the bad guys, and we’ll find your dad.  For now though, you and I have to pretend you’re my daughter, and we’re on a trip to visit your granddad, so if we have to stop and anyone talks to us, try to remember to call me dad or papa or something like that, whichever one you want. Can you do that? Pretend for now to keep us safe?” Tony looked down at the face peering up at him.

“Yes. You can be Dad, because I already have a Daddy,” she matter-of-factly told him.

“No problem, Princess.”  Tony was really glad this whole telling the truth thing was working so far. Thank goodness for Abby.

“Okay, so right now, we can have a snack or take a quick walk, or both, but we have to get back on the road soon so that we can make it my Dad’s place and start the wheels in motion to find your dad and arrest the bad men.” Strangely, Tony hadn’t even considered that she might have a father somewhere to take her off his hands. Though now he wondered if her father was in danger too... surely he would have been with her mother if they’d been testifying to the same incident? A quick communication with Abby once they got in might answer a lot of his questions. Right, okay, modified plan of action was still a go. Now to get Kelly resettled and start driving again. 

“Well, Princess, what’s it going to be, door number one or door number two, or possibly door number three? Snack, walk, or keep driving?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/43946.html where more author's notes are available.


	6. Carry On My Wayward Son

Well, that hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought it might be. Thanking Lady Luck that apparently the emergency entrance code for the front gate that he remembered had never been changed, Tony drove through the quickly retracting iron gates and up the driveway to his father’s mansion. 

“Take a look over there, Princess- I used to climb that big tree over there. And the smaller one next to it used to have a swing. I grew up here. I’ll show you around after we meet my dad.” Tony hoped that telling her about the place like she was a regular guest would help her to like it and feel safe for the moment. If his dad let them stay, he might even be able to put a new swing up for her. 

Moments later, Tony parked the car and they walked slowly up the front steps to the big white front door. He was starting to feel a bit like a door to door salesman. This was the second time in twenty four hours that he’d had to go knocking on a door as a supplicant, hoping the resident would be home. At least at Abby’s he’d been sure that if she was home, she’d take him in. He raised his hand and pressed the door bell button. 

Like something out of a horror movie, the door creaked its way slowly open and a well dressed butler stood in the open space it left, eyes only politely lit with inquiry. 

‘Uh.... Hello. I’m Anthony DiNozzo Jr., is Senior in?” Tony had the sudden wry realization that there might be something to the whole letting Kelly choose her new name thing. Maybe if they ended up having to hide for too long, he could chose his too. He’d always wanted to not have to be a Jr. 

Before the butler could answer, thundering footsteps could be heard from behind him and a stern looking figure appeared over his right shoulder, pushing the butler aside impatiently. 

“Anthony! Would you care to explain why the hell your picture was all over the news this morning? Also, what the hell are you about showing up on my doorstep,” Tony’s father paused for breath and looked down towards Kelly, “with a small child?” Senior rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly reconsidering his opening conversational gambit with the new addition of Kelly to factor in.

“Harold, have Junior bring the little girl inside, set them up in the small dining room with brunch, I’ll be there in just a moment,” with that, Anthony DiNozzo Senior spun on his heel and strode off. The butler gave a sharp half nod and gestured at Tony and Kelly to follow him. 

Tony paused to look down at Kelly before following the impatiently hovering Harold. She looked a few moments away from terrified and was peering anxiously in the direction that his father had exited the foyer.

“It’s okay sweetie, he’s a lot louder than he is mean. He and I just have to have a quick chat so I can tell him what happened and why we’re here, and then things will be fine. Don’t worry, have some lunch, and maybe Harold here can find you a movie to watch.” Turning an inquiring eyebrow in Harold’s direction yielded another one of the man’s crisp nods in reply.

“Yes Miss, we do have movies, and a large TV... I’m sure something like that could be arranged.” The butler almost looked eager about the prospect. Tony wondered if he was a closet movie buff behind the proper butler exterior. 

“And where would I find my father has stormed off to, Harold?” Tony asked, charming smile plastered across his weary face. He figured the butler may well be immune to it, considering his father had the same one, or he may well be used to indulging it for the same reasons. Either way, a good smile had never hurt his cause. The corners of Harold’s mouth twitched in a way that suggested he was aware of Tony’s attempts to play him, but he replied anyway. 

“Sir is most likely in his study. Can I assume that you still know the way, sir?”

Tony wondered how much this man knew about him. He wasn’t the same butler that had worked here when he had last lived in this house, but he got the impression the man was in no way new to the household either. Actually... there was something familiar about the man. Something really-

“Dirty Harry! Oh my god, you became a butler!?” Tony couldn’t believe he was right, but the expression on the other man’s face confirmed it for him. Tony tried to hold back his laughter, tried with all the might of his polite upbringing, but failed anyway. Harold’s eyebrows rose further and further with every chortle. By the time Tony had to put one hand on the door frame and the other on his side in order to stay standing as he gasped for breath, his only slightly below hysterical laughter still coming in short bursts, Harold’s face had broken out into a huge grin. Regaining his composure, Tony stepped forward and the two men exchanged hearty back slaps. 

Stepping back, Tony looked down to see how Kelly was faring. Thankfully, she seemed far less afraid now, her expression appeared to have settled on confused as she looked back and forth between him and Harold. Tony held her gaze with a genuine smile and introduced her properly.

“Princess, this is my friend from way back when I used to live here. We used to play cops and robbers, and since his name was Harry, he got to be dirty Harry. Dirty Harry is a cop from a movie, you can see it when you’re older. His dad was my dad’s butler then. Harry swore he’d never become a butler. In fact, we both swore we were going to become police officers.  Harold here,” Tony tried to give the name an obvious teasing lilt, “is going to have to tell me all about how he ended up choosing to not live up to his nickname sometime soon.” Tony turned his smile on his childhood friend. 

“Harry and I always watched movies together. We had this TV in the basement here, and we’d hide out and watch movies we weren’t supposed to all the time. And then we’d go play as if we were characters from the movies.” Tony remembered feeling a lot more sophisticated about playing pretend back then. They weren’t pretending, they were the people in the movies. They’d be heroes, men who could solve anything. He was pretty sure that after he’d had to leave his father’s house, movie watching had stayed his ritual because of this early indoctrination.

“Delighted to meet you, Miss. Am I to call you ‘Princess’, or do you have another name?” Harry smiled down at Kelly and offered his hand in her direction as he asked. Kelly smiled right back, though one hand clung to Tony’s pant leg, she offered the other for a very proper handshake.

“You may call me Princess Aurora,” she said, head held high. Instead of shaking Kelly’s hand, Harry bent down on one knee and air kissed the back of it. With courtly grace, he nodded his head, released her hand, and rose to his feet. 

“As Your Highness wishes, so shall it be done.” With that, Harry smiled at both of them and gestured them inside so that he could finally shut the door. Tony watched the door close and hoped the last five minutes were a harbinger for good things to come. He could use some good things, and even more, Kelly could. Crossing his fingers behind his back, he watched Harry take Kelly off towards food and movies, and turned to find his way to his father’s study. He had the cave to hide in; it was time to face the bear head on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/44174.html where more author's notes are available.


	7. Into the Lion’s Den, Don’t Forget to Contact the Magician

  
Chickening out at the last minute, Tony decided he should probably check in with Abby before talking to his dad, given that “talking” to his dad usually involved yelling and no short amount of time spent doing so. Abby would be frantic waiting to hear that they’d gotten in safely. He turned around and headed back to the kitchen. Harry would know where his dad kept the computer. 

Harry quickly directed Tony to the small library next to the study where apparently “Sir decided a house computer was required.” Wiggling the mouse to make the dancing Windows icons disappear from the monitor screen, Tony then opened a browser page. Pulling a small scrap of paper from his pocket, he looked at it and quickly typed the long URL into the browser page. Slowly, images loaded and the fantasy role playing bulletin board he and Abby had agreed would be their message exchange place appeared. Posting a new thread, Tony typed in their agreed upon code. 

“Princess safe in castle-not cleared w/dragon yet- Can you get word on possible King?- wasn’t w/P, but she says is alive.” Tony looked at the coda for a moment and decided that Abby was more than smart enough to figure out what he meant. He clicked ‘post’ and waited. Pacing back and forth in front of the small computer covered desk, he tried to think up his opening line for the discussion to come with his father. A surprisingly short time later, a response appeared to his post. 

“Already done. King questing overseas, highly secret mission. No possibility of contact expected for weeks if then.” Damn. Well that didn’t help at all. Tony wondered what branch of the armed forces Kelly’s father was serving with. Would the poor man have even been informed that his wife and daughter were going into witness protection before everything happened? The circumstances didn’t suggest so. Geez, the poor bastard was going to come home to a dead wife and a missing daughter. Missing, but alive if Tony had any say in it. 

“Keep an eye on King for me, will need to know when he comes back to claim throne. Might change things,” Tony replied to Abby’s message. Short moments later a response appeared. Abby was clearly a lightning quick typist with a fast modem.

“Can do Knight, will look for other members of court too. And send word on Hunters’ progress. Magician out.” Tony smiled down at the screen as he read Abby’s sign off name. She sure was magic if she’d found some way to track possible pursuit. While he knew it was highly unlikely any of his work colleagues would think to look for him here, it was an option if they got desperate and broke out his personnel file and just went down the list, which they would. Given his well known estrangement with his dad, he could only hope they wouldn’t start at the bottom of the list.

“Junior! Get your butt in here and stop wearing a hole in my floor, that’s two hundred year old wood, dammit!” Speak of the devil and who should yell a summons... Tony turned back toward the slightly open study door across the hall and gritted his teeth for confrontation. Before he could reach the knob to fully push the door open however, it flew away from him and his father appeared in the now open doorway. 

“Dad, I-” Tony began only to be cut off. 

“I said get in here. They can hear us from the small dining room if we talk in the hallway, do you want to terrify the child already? You know we can’t have this conversation at a reasonable volume and the study’s doors are sound proof now when closed. Get! Get!” Impatient hand-waving accompanied his father’s urgent commands. Succumbing to the inevitable, Tony entered the study and closed the door tight behind him. 

“You can start with explaining why you’re blond, junior...”

**********************************************  

  
“Harold?” Princess Aurora demanded in an imperious tone. Harold automatically oriented his attention towards the little girl as he continued to slice tomatoes for her sandwich. 

“Yes, Your Majesty?” The knife clunked against the cutting board a few more times in perfect rhythm as Kelly considered her question.

“Is Tony’s dad going to yell at him? Because of me?” She needed the answer to this question above all others. Tony had helped her, and promised she’d be safe, she didn’t want to get him in trouble. She didn’t want to be left with no one.

“Yes, Your Majesty, there will probably be some yelling. But it is in no way because of you. It has been a long time since Sir and Tony got along well. Many years. But I’ll tell you a secret, if you want to hear it.” Harold stopped chopping and looked directly at Kelly. “Do you want to hear it?”

Did she? Secrets were usually good things, but today had been full of bad secrets and things she wasn’t thinking about right now. Things she wasn’t going to think about, things like Mommy- No. She wasn’t thinking about that. Right now, she was Princess Aurora. Not Kelly. Kelly had no Mommy and a Daddy who was too far away. Princess Aurora had a dad named Tony and a brand new mansion complete with butler who already wanted to tell her secrets. Yes, Princess Aurora wanted to know what her new servant had to tell her. 

“Yes, please tell me, Harold.” Her face serious, she regarded her servant with rapt attention. Putting aside the knife, Harold leaned close to her and whispered.

“Well you see, Your Majesty, Sir has always wished for grandchildren... particularly a little girl. I suspect he very much wished that Tony could have had a sister, but Sir’s wife, Tony’s mother, died before that could happen. That is how I know that he would never yell at you.” Harold handed Kelly her now fully assembled sandwich.

Princess Aurora quietly nodded her head in acknowledgement of the meal in front of her and began to eat. Harold watched her, concern and curiosity written plainly across his face at the sudden shift in mood. 

  


  


********************************************

  
“Look Dad, I know you don’t exactly care what I’m doing with my life these days, but I’m out of options here, and that little girl? It’s her life on the line too if I screw this up.” Tony looked over at where his father watched him from his seat behind the substantial mahogany desk. The desk hadn’t changed since Tony had last been here. Nor had the expression of disapproval on his father’s face. 

“Anthony, you can’t possibly think I’d turn you away if you were really in trouble?” Senior half rose from his seat, hands firmly planted on the desk in front of him. Tony had to hand it to him, his voice sounded believably incredulous. 

“Well I don’t know, Dad, it’s not like you’ve helped me out of any trouble since I was... I don’t know, twelve maybe?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/45598.html where more author's notes are available.


	8. Interlude 1: A Million Miles Away From Home and Walking Backward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out where the King has gone.

The soldier isn’t happy about the intel they were given. He isn’t happy about most of this op. It’s badly planned, and thrown together at the last minute. It has none of the hallmarks of a successful op, and all of those of an op that’s going to go straight to hell at the earliest opportunity. But he’s not in charge.

He boards the plane fearing, knowing, that the chances he’s going to come back are not nearly as high as he’d like them to be. But he gets on it anyway, as do all of his brethren. They are Marines, dammit. They will prevail. They will stand by each other, they will succeed at their mission, and they will all come home. There are no other options that they will consider possible right now.

The sand stretches out forever beside the concrete runway; the plane rushes forward towards the soldier’s destiny. He will remember the feel of the hot, dry desert for years. The whole of his memories of this place will be overlaid with the feeling of crumpled brittle paper. Like they could be destroyed and discarded if he could just find the right match, but he’s stuck, endlessly trying to grind them into dust. Dust that matches the sand that haunts his mind.

This moment right before the plane finally leaps into the air will haunt his mind more than most. He will think of it as the instant that started it all, even as he knows it was all put into motion years before when he signed the paper that enlisted him in the Marine Corps. Or perhaps the true beginning was when he sat next to a beautiful red-haired girl at a train station. But this moment, the endless second of sand going on forever, poised right before flight, is the one he’ll know created the outcome he regrets, even as he lives and loves with it.

This is the memory that he will never forget, even when he forgets almost all the others. It will wake him from dreams, almost nightmares, eyes popping wide open, the knowledge that he has forgotten something, perhaps all the things, that come before and after this moment, written large by the beat of his pounding heart. Tears will flow from his eyes as he mourns forgotten pains, his whole body clenched in that moment before take-off, waiting to embrace that which he has lost.

He will function in this place of foreboding, lack of information, and painful longing for something he hasn’t seen in far too long. He will learn to use it, to hone it, and finally to break free of it. He stares at his reflection in the plane’s window and his thoughts turn to the little girl whose face he has not seen outside of photographs in years, and the woman who he knows takes care of her. This little girl, this woman, they hold his heart for him while he marches on. And he knows that they will always do so.

The plane wheels part company with the ground, and he and his fellows are in flight. They will spend several hours flying cautiously to a hidden point where they will land. They will disembark and continue their journey deeper into unknown enemy territory. They will undertake their mission and they will succeed. There are no other options. And he will come home to his heart. He must; he would be lost without it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/46438.html where more author's notes are available


	9. In Which Furniture Takes a Hit for the Greater Good

They’d been at Tony’s dad’s house for three days. His dad had spent much of the time on the phone attempting to galvanize his back room buddies at every government agency he knew of into action. Senior was hoping that one of his powerful cronies could be mobilized to prove Tony’s innocence and get a real investigation going into the corruption in Tony’s department.

So far, takers had been few. Senior had been unable to say that he’d had contact with his son, lest anyone come looking for Tony and Kelly at the house. All Senior’s contacts apparently knew of his estrangement from his son and thus kept humming and hawing and generally saying that they’d look into the issue, but clearly expecting Senior to leave well enough alone and not call back when results failed to materialize. After all, they all knew the last time the man had seen his son was years ago. It had to be just the reputation of his family name that worried him.

Tony had spent most of his time split between trying to distract Kelly from her immediate situation and wandering into the library to see if Abby had sent him any updates. Tony sighed and contemplated his next move should both his meager contacts and his father’s more extensive ones fail to launch the required investigation. An investigation to prove him on the side of the angels and make Kelly hopefully free to come out of hiding and back to her dad upon his return from parts unknown and military missions unlisted.

Tony reached out and clicked refresh on the browser window for the fourth time. The page ponderously reloaded, images coming together line by line. He was glad for his father’s state of the art Internet connection. The man might have been an ass to Tony growing up, but he knew his high tech gadgets and it was certainly saving Tony time, if not frustration, as he clicked away, eagerly awaiting Abby’s response.Tony couldn't imagine trying to load this page on a slower connection, it might take all day! Tony clicked again and finally a new message from Abby appeared on the bulletin board.

“Fuck!” Tony exclaimed to the empty library around him. The shelves and their heavy books did not reply and the message did not change.

“Found King’s status. Last mission successful, but all the King’s horses and men, cannot be put together again. Most listed KIA. King MIA with supposition of KIA. Consensus appears to be that last quest was badly planned and hinky from the beginning. I’m sorry Knight. I will keep trying my spells, but unless circumstances change, this may be all I can divine. Hug Princess for me, poor baby. Suggest planning for the worst, but maybe not telling her yet. Magician out.”

Tony sat down heavily in the old wooden desk chair, barely registering its creak of protest. Both of Kelly’s parents were gone now. He had promised to find her dad. Had even told her that Abby was looking into it. Now he’d have to tell her that her dad might be dead too. Probably was dead too. He could do as Abby suggested and hold off, but still, this meant at some point someone would have to tell her. At the moment, that meant Tony, since it wasn’t like it would go over better coming from Harold or Senior. Maybe he should hold off until they were out of hiding? Maybe whichever social worker they sent to get her could tell her. He couldn’t do it.

Tony shook his head. No, he’d wait until either the man was actually declared killed in action, or for Kelly to be able to be out of hiding. At least then she wouldn’t be worried about being killed on top of hearing she’d never see her dad again. Yeah, he’d wait. Maybe try to prepare her for the truth? No, dammit that wouldn’t help. It’s not like it had made his mother’s death any less difficult when he’d known it might be coming. She might barely remember her father, not having seen him in years from what Tony could gather, but that didn’t make his loss any less, particularly following the loss of her mom. Poor poor baby.

How could he help? He wasn’t equipped for this. No one was prepared for this situation, least of all Kelly. Tony lowered his head into his hands, elbows resting on the chair’s armrests. Breathe. Just breathe. He could do that. He could do this. There wasn’t anyone else, and there was a wonderful little girl still depending on him. He was going to be the best dad he could be. This princess deserved someone who would take care of her, and there wasn’t anyone else, so he’d sign up for as long as he needed to. He’d never stopped to think what made someone a father before... but now he was pretty sure it was the choice to take on the responsibility. He could do that until he could get her back to her real dad or a real family of some sort. She was such an amazing little girl, she deserved a great family. She deserved better than what he could give her right now, but he'd do his best and keep her safe and it would all work out in the end.

Tony bounced up out of the tiny antique chair with new determination. And if he spared a tiny half hysterical laugh and smile at the chair as it toppled to the ground behind him, well, that was between him and the empty library, wasn’t it?

“One crisis at a time, I’m afraid, and you don’t take priority,” he addressed the now sadly overturned and broken chair and turned to stride with a new determination, if not a new confidence, out of the room. He had an important little girl to talk with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/46802.html where additional author's notes are available.
> 
> Please note, as this caused some confusion for a few people: This chapter is set in roughly the early 90's to make the time lines approximately correct to the show. Remember 'way back' when the internet was really really slow no matter how good your technology? Yeah, that would be what I'm trying to describe with the various references to page load time here. If you don't remember then... well then, don't mention it okay? You'll make me feel old. :-)


	10. Who Ya Gonna Call?

Anthony DiNozzo Senior was very used to being able to make things happen at the time and pace he wised them to. Of course, he’d never tried to unofficially and single handedly jump start an internal government investigation before. But really, it was clearly just a matter of time, because here he was now, attempting to save his son’s good name and career. If he believed Junior’s explanation of this whole crazy situation, he was also saving the life of an adorable smart little girl whom he was growing increasingly fond of as the days progressed. She was practically his granddaughter already! Why just yesterday the little minx had gotten him to consider the logistics of adding a small pony stable to the property.

It was frustrating how few people would take him seriously with what few facts Junior would allow him to reveal for safety reasons. He’d reached the point where it was clearly time to pull out the big guns if he was going to get any kind of action on this. Forget old school chums. Disregard business friends and political cronies whom he’d done favors for. Regretfully move beyond the powerful women (who ran powerful men) whom he’d flirted with in the past. No. Now was the time to call upon the men who knew when he was bluffing or serious. Those who would take him at his word that this was a deadly situation. 

Now it was time for old poker buddies. 

One old card in particular could be perfectly situated to act in this matter. Mike Franks and he went way back, and last he’d spoken with Mike, he’d still been working at NIS. Junior had mentioned that the little one’s father was a Marine. Surely that would allow Franks the modicum of jurisdiction required. He spared a moment to hope that the number he had for Mike was still current, not relishing the thought of wasting more time on the long intervals of phone tag required if the number needed updating. Three rings later, the sound in his ear changed to a voice brusquely barking,

“Franks.”

“Mike, you old card counting son of a bitch!” Senior greeted him back in customary fashion.

“DiNozzo? The only cards I ever counted were the ones you dealt from the bottom of the deck, you crazy bastard!”

“I did no such thing. Well... not when we were playing for money anyway. That one time when we were betting on who’d get to dance with the twenty-two year old blond in the backless dress... I might have cheated a little then,” Senior allowed.

“A little? What, you will that royal flush to appear?” Mike scoffed out in return.

“Oh come on, you couldn’t really blame me, could you?”

“Naw. I remember that dress. That was a great dress.”

“Heh. Must’ve been since we both still remember it. So listen, Mike, I have something I need to tell you about, and maybe a favor to ask....”

******************************************************************************************************

“Junior!” Anthony DiNozzo Senior’s voice carried remarkably well in this corridor, Tony was forced to admit. 

Turning from where he’d been peering through the door to the little parlor at Harry watching TV with Kelly curled up next to him on the sofa, Tony quietly pushed the door shut behind his back. From the looks of it, Kelly had fallen asleep at least half a movie ago. Tony had been lurking outside the door trying to determine if he should go in and take her upstairs to bed, or bring over a blanket and take Harry’s place so that Harry was free to go work on other things. No one had actually asked Harry if he liked being a butler turned babysitter, after all. Though, Tony was pretty sure Harry was appreciating the time to catch up on his movie watching.

“Junior!” His father’s commanding inflection brought Tony back to the present. “I finally got a hold of someone who can help with this whole mess.” 

“That’s great, Dad.” Tony tried to shuffle a step forward away from the barely closed door. Bringing up his hand, index finger extended to his mouth in a shushing motion to quiet his father’s exuberant voice, he opened his mouth to speak. “So-”

“You could be a little more grateful, you know.” Senior huffed.

“Geez, Dad, I was just trying to get you to quiet down a little,” Tony cringed at the slight whine that he couldn’t keep from creeping into his tone. 

“Why should I be quiet, it’s my god-damned house!” And there he went, the Senior storm front, moving in. Tony really hadn’t missed this the last ten years or so. 

“Look Dad, I am grateful, it’s just that I just learned that Kelly’s dad may be dead, so I’m a little on edge, and she’s in the next room, asleep, and I’m trying to keep our conversation a little more private, okay?” 

The door creaked behind Tony.

“Well Junior, looks like that’s another thing you failed at,” Senior muttered unforgivingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/48729.html where additional author's notes are available.


	11. Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Field...

Tony looked down at what was fast becoming an all too familiar sight after the past four days; Kelly, exhausted, laying curled up asleep with tear marks on her face. He’d finally gotten her calmed down after the disastrous accidental revelation of her father’s status as maybe dead. He’d spent the past hour trying to stress that it was only “maybe” dead. 

It had taken Tony a while to realize that wasn’t actually what she was worried about. She was convinced her father was alive, and told them all so. She was distraught at the thought that her daddy’s bosses (the Marines, Tony discovered) apparently thought he was dead, which in her mind, meant he was probably very lost somewhere far away, and possibly hurt. She would know, she’d said, if he were dead, he was alive, but she was worried about him finding his way home. 

Tony froze as Kelly turned over a little, the movement of the sheets and blankets tucked tight around her making an overly loud sound in the previously silent room. A muffled keen of protest slipped incoherently from her mouth as she brought her hands down to tug at the tightening covers. Tony stepped forward and carefully loosened the blanket cocoon she’d managed to get herself into, kneeling down beside the bed to do so. Kelly turned away from him, blankets loose about her now, and snuggled down into her pillow. 

“Oh little one...,” Tony mumbled, head dropping forward onto the edge of the bed. “What am I going to do with you?” he asked the quilt pressed against his face. He really had to put a stop to this disturbing new habit of directing his queries and exclamations at furnishings. He took a deep breath, placing his hands on either side of his head to lever himself back to standing, but abruptly lost steam, resting them there, suddenly finding his pose to be an appropriate supplication to the universe. 

“Please, I’d like to do this right. I’d like to come out of this with her safe, everyone important alive, maybe even with a job still? I’m pretty sure I’m not asking for the impossible here...” Tony’s thought process trailed off, his whispered words lost into the quiet night. Turning his head so he could see her, he brought one hand up to stroke Kelly’s hair away from her tear smudged face. “Poor little Princess...” at the words, Kelly’s head turned, her cheek pressing into Tony’s stroking hand. Tony rose up on his knees to press a kiss to her forehead and sat back down silently, his head resting against the elbow he still had propped on the bed. Between the one breath and the next, he was asleep, his other hand still resting half on Kelly’s pillow. 

***************************************************************

Startled awake, Tony raised his head and looked around, trying to figure out what had woken him. The slightly open bedroom door was outlined in a long thin sliver of light. A muffled crash echoed up the stairs. Tony cocked his head to listen as the noise came again. A single slamming noise followed, then Tony could hear heavy footsteps ascending the front staircase. Quietly he levered himself to his feet, glancing down at Kelly, undisturbed and still sleeping soundly, as he did so. He placed himself between Kelly and the door, hearing the stomping come closer and closer, knees bent in a ready stance. He wasn’t exactly surprised when the door bounced open and hit the facing wall, Senior charging in its wake. 

Kelly, however, came to consciousness screaming as she bolted upright and scrambled to the opposite side of the bed, the sight in front of her clearly not even registering yet. 

“Dad, what the hell!?” Tony demanded of his father. 

“Junior, get Kelly, and get the hell out!” Senior brusquely replied as he rushed towards the corner of the room that held Kelly’s few belongings and started to stuff them into her bag. 

“Dad-” Tony started, rage rising at the thought that his father had decided 5 am was the time to change his mind about sheltering them.

“Anthony!” Senior yelled, ignoring the terrified face of Kelly still staring at them with incomprehension, “I just got a call, they’re on their way here with a search warrant, you have to run, you have twenty minutes at most!” No need to explain who ‘they” were. Tony bolted into action, swiftly moving to the room across the hall to slip his ever-ready pack onto his back, and running back to scoop up Kelly, blanket and all. Turning towards his father who stood, Kelly’s bag in hand in the middle of the room, he whispered to the bundle in his arms, “Don’t worry baby, it’ll be okay.” Kelly was silent as her hands reached up to clasp around his neck. They both stood and stared at Senior for a moment. Senior rushed forward abruptly and clasped one hand on Tony’s shoulder, the other brushing over the back of Kelly’s head and down to her neck as he held them both close for a second. 

Stepping away, he held out Kelly’s bag to Tony and said, “Go out the back, Harry is waiting across the yard at the end of the drive in the apple orchard with a car. I’ll tell them he’s on vacation. You were never here. Don’t worry, I’ve got a great lawyer to keep me out of trouble, and I got someone to start investigating this, we’ll fix this, now GO!” 

Tony grabbed Kelly’s bag and nodded, then held his father’s eyes for a brief moment in thanks. As he spun to leave the room he called out to his father, “Abigail Scuito, 202-555-0133, she can get a message to us.” Tony’s last sight of his father as he sprinted for the back door, was of the man running towards the desk in the hall muttering Abby’s name and phone number under his breath in an effort to memorize them as he fumbled for a pen. Tony couldn’t help but smile at the image as he murmured reassurances to Kelly and mentally plotted the fastest course across the backyard. 

Calling the backyard a mere ‘yard’ was outrageously flattering to the term yard, and insulting to the term ‘acreage’. The apple orchard was at the very end of a generous lawn, a plot of decorative garden and woods, and across a small creek. If memory served, it could be nearly a mile. There was no way Tony would be able to carry the tired, but wide awake, Kelly across the whole thing at top speed, especially since she’d started to move restlessly in his arms. As he exited the back door onto the terrace, he slid Kelly gently to the ground and tossed her bag over his shoulder, its small weight only a slightly unwieldy addition to his own bag. Dropping to his knees in front of her, he held her shoulders and looked at her from her own eye level. 

“Princess, we’ve got to run, fast as we can. The bad guys are close, and we have to get out of here before they catch us. Can you run for me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/49432.html where more author's notes are available.


	12. Not All Who Wander Are... Hiding From the Cops

Belatedly, Tony realized that his phrasing in dealing with small children apparently needed work as he watched the swiftly fleeing form of Kelly, already much further ahead of him than he would have expected. Her light colored hair bounced behind her like a flag in the wind, standing out in the murky half-darkness of the early morning. 

Scrambling back to his feet, he tore off after her, feeling the burn in his calves as he tried to leap the distance between them in as few strides as possible. He caught up to her before she was half-way across the back lawn, grabbing her hand and urging her to veer slightly further right in the direction that would eventually take them to the orchard road most directly. She responded easily to his directional lead and they ran flat out across the grass. 

As they reached the tree line, Tony looked over his shoulder back the way they’d come and saw headlights flickering through the trees around the front drive. There were cars pulling up to the front gate. They wouldn’t know the gate code, but his father would have to let them in fairly soon if he didn’t want to arouse suspicions that not everything was on the up and up at the DiNozzo mansion. 

Tony really hoped they didn’t have any dogs with them. Search dogs flying out the back door in ten minutes would really make his night a bitch. Tony couldn’t help the urge to knock his hand against the tree he was climbing around in a brief superstitious moment of weakness. No dogs. Please and thank you, Universe, he wished with all his mental might. He’d spent a little too much of his recent time playing out The Fugitive, which, great movie though it was, being the main character was hardly his goal in life. 

Turning back to Kelly’s tug on his arm, he followed her into the trees, keeping his eyes on the landmarks he knew to guide them straight through the thick copse. They emerged on the other side and darted up to the edge of the small creek. Tony hoisted Kelly up into his arms and all but jumped the water flow, catching the edge of his heel and splashing them both. Kelly giggled, her water dotted face sporting a trembling smile. Tony couldn’t help but return her grin, feeling the giddy combination of adrenaline and the glee of the moment. This whole running through the woods thing was a bit like playing an overly serious game of hide and seek. 

“Yeah, sorry about that Princess, guess my jumping needs work.” Kelly nodded her agreement, her tiny face solemn again with her smile still evident at the corners of her eyes, but her fear creeping back. “I’ll get right on that.” Tony promised. He could see Harry standing next to a car a short distance away. He dropped Kelly back down to her feet. “Run on over to Harry, sweetie, hop in the car.” 

He watched her race off and turned to look behind him again, now seeing glints of flashing red and blue lights back by the house. He ran after Kelly, his brain running through what he knew of the area back roads, hoping that Harry knew more than he did. It was going to be a long day full of high energy demands. He really did need to manage to learn to sleep better before days like these- especially if they were going to become such common events in his life. 

********************************************************

Hours later somewhere in the middle of Kentucky, Tony reflected that it was a good thing Harry had extraordinary recall of the local roadways around the DiNozzo mansion. He’d driven them around the back of the property, carefully skirting the few nearby houses, and back around to the front of the property where the only major local road in the area met up. They’d been able to see additional law enforcement vehicles meandering down the driveway to the house as they drove off in the opposite direction. Tony had noticed a local police car amongst them. Had his father called in a local to try and talk down the Marshals from DC? Or was the local unknowingly coming to the aid of the corrupt officers of the law? It was useless to speculate, but he hoped his dad was receiving aid rather than the reverse. 

Eventually, Harry had steered them out towards the highway, once they were several towns away by way of the local roads. Once on the highway, by mutual agreement they had made their way South, hoping to be able to angle their way back East towards DC if they heard favorable news at their next check in with Abby, or be nearer to the border with Mexico if things weren’t going their way. Though Tony was still holding the option open to try and fake out their pursuers by doubling back North and crossing the Canadian border instead if it they had to. 

Kelly was once again asleep in the back of the car. Harry was conked out in the front passenger seat, having turned over the driving to Tony a couple of hours ago after admitting that his knowledge of the highways now involved in the drive was nil. Tony didn’t know much about the area either, but he didn’t really want to stop for a map yet. Harry deserved a break, and Tony knew how to follow highway signs with the best of them, so he’d taken over the responsibility of directing their course while Harry dozed. 

It was good to have Harry with them. Tony had been enjoying getting to know his old friend again in the few days they’d spent at his dad’s house. It was heartening to have someone else to share the adult responsibilities of being fugitives from the law with too. Considering Tony’s photo had been on the nightly news at least once according to his father upon their arrival, though it hadn’t been broadcast again since (they’d watched the news every night just in case), it was probably prudent that someone else get out of the car to do things like go into shops to buy a map. There was a lot hanging on Abby’s dye job now, his blond hair the only thing from keeping him looking too much like his photo.

It was well past noon and Tony thought briefly of the fact that they had yet to eat anything since their narrow escape early this morning. Actually, that meant they had yet to eat anything since last night, Tony mentally corrected himself. He didn’t think they’d left a trail, and assuming his father had been able to convince their pursuers that Kelly and Tony hadn’t even been at the house as planned, surely they could stop and get a bite to eat? Tony reached his right hand over and bumped Harry’s arm. 

“Wah?” Harry’s sleepy reply lacked a true sense of coherence, so Tony bumped him again. 

“Wake up, Harry.” Tony turned his attention back to minding the road, watching in his peripheral vision as Harry shifted in his seat, raising himself up straighter and blinking. 

Regarding Tony with through slitted eyes, Harry muttered, “Wah-where are we?” sleepily lowering his chin back to his chest, but leaving his half opened eyes lazily trained on Tony’s. 

“I think we’re still in Kentucky, though it could be Tennessee by now,” Tony replied, “And keep it quiet, she’s still sleeping.” Tony nodded his chin towards the backseat, indicating Kelly, as he spoke. “I was thinking it might be time soon to stop for some food. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Plus, I don’t really think she should sleep all day, or she might be up all night when we finally do stop.” Tony wondered if he should be concerned by how often Kelly had dropped off to sleep in the car. Knowing as he did that she’d been plagued with nightmares when sleeping recently, he’d figured she probably wasn’t getting too much sleep, but he remembered as a kid not having any desire to sleep after spending the day asleep in the car. He really wanted to get a little sleep himself at some point, and he wouldn’t be doing that if she was awake all night. 

“Sounds good. Wake me when we get to somewhere you wish to stop for food.” Harry was clearly finished with the conversation. He curled himself towards the window and appeared to go straight back to sleep. Tony smiled to himself in the rear-view mirror. Harry hadn’t changed much when it came to napping then. He’d always been hard to wake up at the end of long movie marathons as a kid too. Tony figured he’d probably learned to guard his sleep all the more jealously working as a butler for his dad. It couldn’t be a 9-5 job with his father’s demanding personality.

After a glance in the mirror again to determine that Kelly was still sleeping, he switched his focus to reading the roadside signs, and thinking of what criteria would be best to use in choosing an appropriate place to stop and eat based purely on the logos and descriptions he could see. 

He wanted some place small because then they’d have less people to deal with- he’d be less likely to be recognized, and they’d generally be able to avoid questions. On the other hand, getting lost in a crowd was always easier, and he needed a place where it was unlikely they’d be looked at suspiciously. A place which was purely a truck stop probably wouldn’t do. He wanted a place where two adults and a child could stop and be utterly unremarkable. Mentally wavering back and forth, he wondered if the lack of sleep and food were affecting his decision making capabilities. Right, not at all. Nope. 

Spotting a cheerful sign for ‘Rosie’s: Open 7-Midnight, Brunch on Sundays, Kids eat free!’ Tony flipped on his blinker and merged into the right lane. That sounded like just the place. 

Pulling the car over into the exit lane, he announced, “Wake up kids! We’re going to Rosie’s! I hear they’ve got a great brunch. Who wants pancakes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/47109.html where more author's notes are available.


	13. Pancakes Can’t Solve Everything

Rosie’s had been but the first of a long string of small family restaurants and diners throughout their drive South where they’d stopped. Most of the time after that first stop, Tony and Kelly had stayed in the car, while Harry went in and got them a take-out order. Sometimes, if the parking area was scarcely populated, they’d take out the Frisbee Harry kept in his car and play catch as they waited, looking like any other father and daughter on a roadtrip, bored from too much time in the car and in need of something to do to stretch their legs. 

At least Tony hoped that was the case. Kelly had proven unusually resilient for a six year old, and while she retreated into herself at times and still had the habit of sleeping for long periods of time in the car, she was also outgoing and interactive the few times they were in public. She had flawlessly managed her part play-acting as Tony’s daughter, and consistently introduced herself by her own assumed name as well. She seemed to be taking life well, though she still occasionally woke from nightmares. They’d taken to spending the nights in hotel rooms, with Tony and Harry switching off sleeping shifts so that one of them was awake to be there for Kelly when she needed to be woken up from her dreams. 

Twice in the past week, they had detoured from the relatively anonymous highways into a city center and Tony had charmed his way into using a public library computer- without a library card. Librarians really went for his traveling salesman needing to check his email shtick, if he did say so himself. He’d enjoyed challenging himself by “selling” a different product each time, watching each librarian attempting to keep her eyes from glazing over as they pretended to be interested in the most boring sales items in the world; all because the pretty salesman was right there in front of them, acting flirty. It was amazing what people were willing to endure if you flirted with them while you babbled on. 

So far, there hadn’t been any actionable updates from Abby- just a few general notes indicating that they should stay in the holding pattern which they were currently in. Abby did assure them that the “Retired Rogue,”- which she had apparently dubbed his father- was doing fine and was not under arrest. Tony refused to be impressed by his father’s nickname, but he was already prepared to be impressed by his dad’s acting skills. He hoped one day he finally got to hear the story of how his father had greeted and convinced a house full of federal law enforcement officers that he hadn’t actually just been harboring his son and an arguably kidnapped child. Particularly when said son and child’s finger prints had to be everywhere around the place. After this was all over, Tony was pretty sure that story was going in his father’s greatest hits cocktail party line-up. 

Tony was nervous after so long without being able to do anything but hide in plain sight. He spent a lot of his time looking over his shoulder, half expecting bad guys to jump out of the shrubs behind him at any moment. He didn’t like not knowing what was going to happen next, nor did he appreciate the fact that there was nothing he could do right now to fix that. He had complete trust in Abby, but she could only relay messages; she couldn’t orchestrate a solution to something this big all by herself. 

Though, Tony mused, if you gave her a few more computer resources and some military men, she could probably overthrow the government if need be. Huh, that was a thought. Abby at large. Tony cringed inwardly. That... was a bad thought. He shook his head. He just needed Kelly safe, he didn’t need a whole new governmental structure. Right. So, not relying on Abby’s ability to come up with the solution of highest improbability. What actions could he take to improve their current situation? 

Seated on the hood of the still hot car in yet another dusty parking lot with the evening light fading around him, Tony despaired. Twenty feet away, Kelly was tossed the Frisbee directly up in the air, catching it as it fell, her little face set in a look of grim determination. Tony raked a hand through his hair. He didn’t have enough information. He hadn’t from the beginning of all of this- the most definitive piece of information he’d had throughout this whole ordeal was the feeling in his gut that something about his boss was off in a potentially illegal way.

He still wasn’t really sure exactly who would want a six year old girl and her mother dead or why, lacking the background of their case as he did. He could think of a lot of potential people and possible motives, but none specific enough to help him form a detailed theory of the situation. Abby hadn’t been able to get the information either; apparently it wasn’t hackable, which probably meant it was in a paper file some where- not on computer at all- or they wouldn’t be having this issue; because if it was computerized, Abby would have found it by now. She was that good. 

He was aware that his father had great faith in his friend Franks too, but so far they hadn’t heard anything from that corner. Knowing his father’s friends, the guy could be sitting on his ass in a bar somewhere, waiting for the answer to the situation to come to him. Well, that was an idea worth considering. If Tony could take this mess back to people who could actually deal with it and shove it in their face discreetly (but just publicly enough that it had to be dealt with), maybe he could get somewhere. 

What he really needed was some proof of wrongdoing that was irrefutable. Even criminals needed to have records, didn’t they? Of course, all the criminals that he knew were involved in this were back in DC, and here he was sitting on his ass in the middle of nowhere, more than half-way to Texas. 

Well, okay, driving back to DC was a plan, and it did involve moving actively in a direction. Tony was really tired of running away and hiding. But unless he planned on training Kelly for a life as a cat burglar, he probably shouldn’t take her with him. Harry had been wonderful to them both, but he didn’t deserve to be brought up on kidnapping charges for his efforts, so leaving Kelly with him was a bad idea too. What he needed was a partner, dammit.

“Catch!” Kelly’s voice broke into his reverie as the Frisbee came flying at his face.

In his mad scramble to catch the plastic disk on a trajectory aimed directly at his noggin, Tony managed to shuffle just a smidgen too far over on the car hood. He ended up landing unceremoniously on his ass on the ground beside the car, his right arm triumphantly raised, clutching the Frisbee as he waved it back in forth in mock surrender to life in general. 

“Daaaaaaad!” Kelly chastised as she raced towards him, “You need to put catching on your list.” Even though he knew she was just doing it to keep their cover, Tony’s mental pang on being called “Dad” never seemed to lessen. It was terrifying and amazing all at once. 

“What list, ‘Rora-roar?” His knowledge that Kelly wasn’t his daughter had in no way stopped him from making up more nicknames for her, either. He’d started it as a way of making sure he used her current alias in public, figuring out as many nicknames as he could that started from ‘Aurora,’ but it had since come to carry a note of genuine affection with it. This nickname in particular seemed to suit her well, as Tony most often thought of her as having a loud roar when she needed it, and a great lion-like inner strength; but she was playful like a kitten too. Of course, he hadn’t thought about it too much, it just suited her well. 

“With the jumping! Things you need to work on,” she said, matter of fact about it, “Dads should be able to play catch without falling on their butts.” She giggled then, probably because she’d used the word ‘butt.’ Tony suspected that wasn’t actually a word she had been encouraged to use in public, but he’d refrained from saying anything about her language so far. He was uncomfortable making up rules that went beyond those required to keep her alive and safe. It wasn’t really his place, even if he felt the urge to do so. Besides, it was way better than ‘ass’ and he’d had issues censoring his language appropriately in the past few weeks, so he really couldn’t bring himself to censor hers when it was so mild a potential transgression.

“Toby!” Harry called out as he approached them. “What happened? You get hurt?” Harry asked, concerned.

“Just my ego, Harry, just my ego.” Tony replied, grabbing Harry’s proffered hand and pulling himself to his feet with it. “Princess here says I’m not measuring up to her standards. I can’t jump or catch well enough.” Tony looked down at Kelly who looked away from his gaze with a slightly hurt look on her face. 

“Hey, what’s wrong sweetie?” Tony knelt down to look Kelly in the eyes. She turned her head away mumbling something. “Hey, hey... Princess, what’s wrong?” He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently tried to get her to look at him. She looked everywhere but at him. 

Suddenly she leaned in towards him and whispered in his ear, “I didn’t mean- you’re not a bad dad, Marshall Tony.” She sounded apologetic, like she almost anticipated how much it would hurt him to hear his real name and title. Not that Tony had known how much that would hurt until he heard it. She paused. “I just- I want my daddy,” she gasped out, bursting into tears. Tony closed his arms around her and pulled her against him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. 

“Oh baby, hey, no, no, no, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” Tony held her tighter and decided, that was it. This little girl had gone through enough. He was done with hiding and avoiding trouble. They were going to solve this. This was going to end. Now. 

Scooping Kelly into his arms, Tony motioned Harry towards the driver side of the car. Awkwardly fishing the keys out of his pocket one handed, he tossed them over the top of the vehicle at Harry. He opened the backdoor of the car and sat down, settling Kelly in by his side. He jerked his head at Harry in the rear-view mirror to get his attention.

“When we get to the highway, go the other way. We’re going back to D.C.” Harry nodded. Tony looked down at Kelly and stroked her hair as Harry slotted the keys into the ignition and hit the gas petal. They left the dusty parking lot and the sunset behind them and plunged into night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/47608.html where additional author's notes are available.


	14. Interlude 2: That Way Lies Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out why the King is gone.

The soldier lays in a narrow bed, enveloped in crisp white linens. Wires, tubes, and machines cluster around his form, attached to him like strange spider webs, his only connection to the world surrounding him. He feels them vibrate with the air currents as nurses come and go. He isn’t sure how much time has passed, or when he got here.    
  
He remembers days- weeks?- of a small room, pain, no escape. There is a gap. He remembers waking up here. Here is new. Here is not there.  _There_ is pain;  _here_ is floating, the disjointed feeling of watching his life go by without him in it.   
  
Two men came once. They tried to tell him something. He can’t remember what they said. They left. He thinks that was more than a day ago. The nurses have come many times since then. He’s sure he’s awake now only in comparison to the fact that he’s sure he wasn’t before, but all his memories feel washed out, thin and constantly in motion.    
  
Time passes both slowly and in odd jumps in turns. The two men return. And leave again. They speak to a nurse as they exit the room, but not to him. He wants to ask them why they look so grim, but he cannot seem to speak and part of him knows that men like this are always grim. They do not bring good news. Did they have news for him?   
  
He dislikes looking at the undulating, nearly translucent curtains on his small window; it makes him nauseous and causes the feeling of unreality to grow and encapsulate him further. Yet, he finds himself watching them often. They are the only things to look at in the room, besides himself. The bare walls and single chair hold little fascination.       
  
He learns the spots on the walls, counts the ceiling tiles, and becomes familiar with the sounds of the hallway and the yard outside his tiny window before the men visit him again. They ask him many questions. They do not bring him good news. They tell him that his heart is broken, gone, exploded in a car bombing. Both of his girls, gone. He is quiet until they leave.    
  
Pain hits him. It makes him real again. He realizes that he has torn the wires that inform on him to the nurses from his veins. He is bleeding, fists clenched, standing suddenly. Staring at the curtain he hates. He rips it from the wall and twists it around his arm, storms from the room, rage filling his mind.    
  
He reaches the courtyard before it occurs to him that he should have been stopped by someone. Before he hears the planes above. The swirling sound of heavy weight falling from the sky comes from behind him. He whirls around to face the building he has just exited. It explodes.  _ShannonKellyPAIN. Blank._   
  
Leroy Jethro Gibbs ceases to be.     
  
Dragging himself from the wreckage, endless, forgotten minutes later, head bleeding, the soldier looks at the destruction around him. How has he gotten here? Where  is here?    
  
Who is he?   
  
He pulls at the rag wrapped around his wrist and concludes it’s better left where it is; it seems to be holding back blood he prefers to keep in his body. He wraps the cloth tighter around his arm and walks away from the rubble. He doesn’t look back. There is nothing left behind that he still needs.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/47870.html where additional author's notes are available.


	15. On the Road Again; Insisting That the World Keep Turning Our Way

“Hey Honey, you got any  _real_ maple syrup?” A brusk voice from behind Tony inquired of the diner waitress. The tone was equal parts question and appreciative leer. Tony glanced over his shoulder, seeing a man, older than him, clad in a button down shirt and suit jacket, both of which were clearly the worse for wear. His mildly receding hairline wasn't really helped by his scruffy mustache.   
  
This was Franks, then. He was just as described by Abby via computer messages, and he had said the code phrase just as Tony walked by. Tony stepped up to the counter and sat down at one of the stools, darting his gaze at Franks casually as he did so.    
  
"I've always liked the fake stuff better myself," Tony announced conversationally to the diner as a whole just in case. Franks turned his head towards him.    
  
"That so?" The tone of Franks' voice dared him to man up with far more authority in it than required for a mere discussion of chosen pancake accouterments.    
  
"Yup. I like a good lightly flavored high fructose corn syrup. Useful stuff, corn syrup. Did you know they use it to make fake blood in horror movies? I used to know the recipe. One time, in college, we made it for this party-” Tony faltered as Franks’ face looked distinctly unamused. “Hey, it was a great party.” He blustered onwards.    
  
The corner of Franks’ mouth quirked up ruefully like he couldn’t help but give Tony partial credit for being funny and soldiering on in the face of disapproval.    
  
“Kid, I doubt you’ve even seen a great party.” Franks shifted in his seat to face Tony. “A  _great_ party involves the three B’s. None of which are ‘blood’, though I’ll give you that a good fight would involve that- but kid, fun as it is, a fight’s not the same as a party.”    
  
“Okay,” Tony allowed, “I’ll bite... what are the three B’s?” He felt like he should have heard this reference from his dad, but he was positive he hadn’t.    
  
“Booze, babes, and bettin’,” Franks supplied slowly, one corner of his mouth raised in a half smirk. His tone implying that his answer should have been obvious. In retrospect, it would have been if someone had supplied the translation from gambling to ‘bettin’’ for him, Tony thought.    
  
“In my defense, we had those too,” Tony offered as he nodded his head at a corner booth that had just become free. Franks gave a curt nod of his own and they moved to sit down away from potential eavesdroppers.    
  
“So, new friend,” Tony declared. “Let’s say we plan ourselves a good fight, followed by a great party...”    
  


**************************************************************

  


An hour later, Tony was back on the road, Harry in the passenger seat beside him and Kelly tucked in the backseat, once again fast asleep. Tony was amazed at her ability to hit the highway and the snooze button at the same time.

“So...,” Harry opened the conversation with reluctant tact. “You talked to the guy. Do we have a plan now?” Tony glanced over at his childhood friend, mentally flashing back to all the times as kids that they’d had plans of various good (or bad) judgement and each plan’s subsequent renown after its execution. 

“Yeah, sort of. But first we have to find a place for Kelly to hang out safely, and you should get back to your real job.” 

“Oh no, not happening. I got into this craziness with you, I’m staying until the end. You are not doing this alone, Tony.” Harry’s brow furrowed as he gave Tony the evil-eyed stare he used to use has his ‘cop face’ as a kid. 

Tony sighed. “Harry, I can’t ask you to do this. I may not be doing things that are entirely legal. Now is not the time to make up for not becoming a cop when you had the chance.” He didn’t want to be insulting, but it wasn’t like Harry had gotten any training that would be useful to their current goals from being a butler. Tony was fairly certain his father’s butler had never had to handle a gun, for one thing. 

“First off,  Sir would do well to remember that I do not work for him, and thus do not have to take his orders,” Harry’s harsh whisper was filled with indignation, his mouth twisted in a grimace as he continued. 

“Second, you’re an asshole. I can help, Tony. I do have skills beyond greeting people and making sandwiches.” Harry paused and his face lit up in an ear-to-ear grin. “For example,” he slid a smug sideways look at Tony, “I’m really good at  _opening_ doors. Particularly the locked ones.” 

Tony briefly tore his attention away from driving and dared a piercing glance at his childhood friend. 

“Reeeally?” He drew the word out in teasing, but earnest, inquiry. “Harry, I do believe you’ve been holding out on me. No more of that. Fess up-resume on the table. Also-you couldn’t have told me this  _before_ I went and met the scary grumpy, NIS man?”

It seemed Tony had been underestimating his old friend. Maybe they had an even better chance of pulling this plan off than he’d thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/52975.html where additional author's notes are available.


	16. Smooth Criminal?

The plan had come together rather well, and much easier than Tony had initially expected. Even though they were operating in the ethical gray area of not currently being on the correct side of the law, with Franks’ backing they knew that if they got caught they probably wouldn’t end up tossed in jail for life at least. The real trick was getting the evidence they needed in such a way that the official investigation could put it all together after all was said and done.    
  
In fact, Franks had assured Tony that as long as they could find proof of the department’s corruption and Tony’s innocence, he could make sure Tony came out on the correct side of the legal equation. Of course, those hadn’t been his exact words. No, his exact words were more along the lines of “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll make so you don’t end up in the slammer. That crazy Goth girl of yours already proved you innocent to me, now we just gotta prove it to the higher ups. And those assholes like paperwork. Gonna find me some paperwork?”    
  
Which was why Tony was here, tiptoeing through the back lane up to a Georgetown house that belonged to his soon-to-be-former boss, Karl Vanzetti, dressed all in black, with Harry following behind him, similarly attired. Tony pressed himself low and slightly sideways, back to the white clapboard siding of the house, taking advantage of the narrow shadow cast by the house itself.    
  
From what Tony knew of Karl Vanzetti, and the marshals that he was certain were involved-- Rafferty, Trip, Bierden, and Saccota-- he’d concluded that there was no way they’d be stupid enough to keep incriminating evidence at the department office. He was sure that they’d keep it somewhere they felt it was safer and easier to access, which he figured pretty much had to be one of their homes. It had taken Tony and Harry a bit of amateur sleuthing and Abby a bit of hacking, but only two days to conclude that it was likely the operation was worked largely out of Vanzetti’s house in Georgetown.    
  
From there it had just been a hop, skip, and quickly attiring themselves in black clothing to get them to where they were now. The hardest part had indeed been figuring out where Kelly could stay while he and Harry were off playing James Bond. From somewhere in her metaphorical big bag of ever increasingly numerous friends and acquaintances, Abby had pulled out a group of nuns with whom she apparently spent time bowling. Tony still wasn’t sure what that was all about. She’d been terrible at bowling the one time they’d gone together... maybe bowling with the nuns had helped her form?    
  
So Abby, the nuns, and Kelly were off tonight -- probably not bowling, though Tony couldn’t be 100% sure -- keeping Kelly safe with numerous people around her, and far away from the breaking and entering that Tony and Harry were about to perform... right... about... now. Tony bent a little lower and slid his way under a window, turning back briefly to motion Harry to do the same once he was past it. Harry returned his hand motion with an eye roll that Tony knew from recent experience translated roughly to ‘teach your grandmother to suck eggs, pretty boy,’ and followed with a true burglar's grace.    
  
Tony rolled his eyes back and jerked his chin upwards, mouthing ‘show-off!’ as he pulled a small wallet of lock picks from his shirt pocket. Crouching low opposite Harry, their bodies on either side of the house’s side door, Tony spared a momentary mental flicker of continued surprise at how good his boyhood friend had turned out to be at all things related to moderate levels of thievery. Harry bent down next to him, situated himself directly in front of the door lock, and quietly flung out a demanding hand, palm upwards. Tony silently slapped the wallet of lock picks into Harry’s palm and leaned in to get a closer look at Harry’s lock picking technique.    
  
Musing to himself, he decided he really should learn to pick a lock one of these days. The past few weeks were proof, after all, that just because up until now he’d always been on the warrant-issuing side of the law, that really didn’t mean he’d always stay there. Looking away from Harry’s industrious hands, Tony nervously panned his gaze across the tiny yard, the fence, and twisted his neck to see what little he could of the empty front driveway. A tiny ‘click’ came from the lock and he felt Harry softly tap him on his shoulder. Pulling his gun from its holster, he turned back just in time to catch the sight of Harry’s tail end disappearing into the house in front of him.    
  
Tony flattened his back against the door frame, took a step sideways and pivoted his way around the half open door into the house, gun held forward. Darting his eyes left and right, he looked for Harry in the dark hallway. A sudden soft, but alarming, ‘creak’ came from behind him, followed by the soft thump of the door closing, making his nerves sky rocket and his pulse pound. Jerking his head so he could see over his right shoulder, he relaxed as he realized that the door hadn’t moved of its own accord. Harry stepped away from the now closed door and laid a calming hand on Tony’s shoulder, his other hand coming up to his mouth, three fingers loosely closed and forefinger pointed in a ‘shh’ sign.    
  
Tony pulled in a quick breath and tilted his head, indicating the doorway to Vanzetti’s study to their left. Harry nodded and motioned Tony to go ahead of him into the room. Slipping through the doorway, Tony did a quick assessment of his surroundings and concluded the room was as empty as expected. They’d waited for everyone to leave earlier, knowing from their past few days of observation that Vanzetti was still going to the gym at this hour, as he had for all of the time Tony had worked with him.   
  
Tony had at one point attended a work party in this very house about a year ago, so he knew the basic layout of the place. This was the room he thought was most likely to hide a wall safe or filing cabinet. Vanzetti had kept the door closed throughout the party, and only a few select people had been invited inside over the course of the evening. If Tony’s memory of events was accurate, which it generally tended to be, most of the people on that list were also on their short list of possible suspects inclusion along with Vanzetti for this whole mess.    
  
Tony kept one eye on the doorway and another on the window that looked out onto the front lawn as Harry systematically rifled through the desk in the center of the room. Finding nothing among the loose papers on the top of the desk, Harry carefully began going through the drawers. Tony let his eyes wander over the shelves covering three of the room’s four walls, looking for anything that looked like it might cover a hidden wall safe or like it might be a hollow book.    
  
“Pay dirt!” Harry’s whisper reached Tony’s ears. “Oh have we got you, Mr. Vanzetti...” Harry’s voice trailed off as he appeared to disappear completely behind the desk from Tony’s vantage point. Tony made one last perusal of the walls then strode over the desk to lean down over Harry’s shoulder where he was kneeling down over the open bottom drawer. Harry glanced up to confirm Tony was looking at what he’d found, then pointed a finger at the cover of a the first in a pile of small ledger books in the drawer. Tony spared a glance towards the odd piece of wood sticking half out of the drawer that he guessed was a false bottom that Harry had removed to get to the books.    
  
“House accounts and...,” Harry flipped to the next book, “doctored house accounts.” Harry shuffled to the next book. “Not sure what this is, but it’s in code, so that can only lead to interesting things....” Harry peered down at the tiny neat handwriting, running his finger under the lines of text, trying to make sense of them.    
  
Engrossed as they were in the cryptic writing in the book, neither of them noticed that the twin lights shining through the window weren’t from a passing car, but rather from one pulling into the driveway. The sudden slam of a car door far too close by caused Tony’s head to snap up and towards the sound and Harry to juggle the books awkwardly back into the small cubby in the bottom of the drawer.    
  
“Shit.” Tony whispered. Harry grabbed the false bottom panel and crammed it into its spot, just getting it flush as they both heard footsteps that had to be coming from the front porch. Sliding the drawer shut, Harry shot to his feet and looked at Tony. Tony stood in the middle of the room, assessing all possible options open to them at lightning speed. His hand lept to the buckle of his weapon holster, tearing the leather from his body as quickly as he could, he tossed the whole thing at Harry and tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants, hidden in the hollow of his lower back.    
  
“Dammit, Tony!” Harry hissed. They could both hear someone jingling keys and fitting them to the front lock.    
  
“Sorry, Harry. Plan B.” Tony replied, jaunty smile plastered to his face, his pulse racing. “Now get behind that door,” he ordered his friend, giving him a helpful push in the right direction.   
  
“I HATE Plan B,” Harry ground out as he moved behind the open study door to hide between it and the wall. “Plan B sucks, and you know it!” Tony heard the last parting taunt as his friend disappeared into the shadow.    
  
“I promise not to get killed,” Tony sing-songed back in a low whisper as he took his place in front of the desk. He shook his arms out, loosened his body in one long undulation, and relaxed back to half sit, half lean against the desk, legs crossed in front of him, arms crossed over his chest. Bracing himself as he heard the front door of the house close, he took out the smuggest smile in his extensive collection of happy looks and aimed it at the open doorway.    
  
Moments later, Vanzetti entered the study, hand going to causally drop his keys on the side table, when he froze, catching sight of Tony. His other hand was on his weapon instantly, though he was clearly dumbfounded.    
  
Tony’s smirk turned just a little bit evil at the sight. Time to start the show.    
  
“Oh hi,  _boss_ . Ya miss me?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/58386.html where additional author's notes are available.


	17. Incidents and Accidents, Hints and Allegations

“Hands above your head, DiNozzo. Now!” Vanzentti commanded, stepping a menacing stride forward.    
  
“Suuure, no problem.” Tony drawled in reply. He lifted his hands to an insolent, casual mid-shoulder height, squaring his stance at the same time, but not putting all of his weight forward on his feet. In an effort to keep Vanzetti off balance, he kept his body language nonthreatening, but just on the edge of insulting. Vanzetti kept his weapon trained on Tony and just stood in the center of the room for a moment. Tony quirked one side of his mouth and raised a questioning eyebrow. For a flash of a second, Vanzetti’s mouth thinned into a grim line and then his expression turned neutral.   
  
“Where’s the girl, DiNozzo?” he asked, tone cajoling. He lowered the gun a few inches from its dead-center focus on Tony’s chest. “What did you do with her?” His voice held inquiry, but not accusation.    
  
Tony looked at him, projecting hurt and disbelief.    
  
“Seriously? That’s how you’re going to play this?” Tony paused, looking momentarily at his feet and shuffling in place a little, bringing one arm halfway down in the process. He raised his head and looked Vanzetti directly in the eyes. “I just want to know... at what point did you decide I was a moron?” He held Vanzetti’s gaze, staring him down for all he was worth.    
  
“What are you talking about, Tony? I don’t think you’re a moron, I think you’re a criminal. Now what did you do with the girl?” Vanzetti attempted to bluff.    
  
“Oh, so we’re on first-name terms now, _ Karl _ ?” Tony sneered. “Still not a moron.” Tony let his weight fall against the desk again, shifting a little toward the side of the desk with the hidden drawer.    
  
“What do you suppose I’d find if I went looking in this desk behind me?” he pointed his gaze at the drawer and leaned backwards slightly for show, ignoring the press of his gun into the small of his back. He flicked his eyes back at Vanzetti.    
  
“Don’t bullshit me, I know what you’ve been doing. I’ve known for a while. Contrary to your belief, apparently, I’m also smarter than I look, since you clearly didn’t know that I knew.” Tony’s words hung in the air between them for a moment.    
  
“But now that you know that I know, that you know that I am, in fact, smarter than I look... how we gonna play this?” Tony tossed out the words with ease, knowing he sounded like he was quoting something; which he wasn’t, not quite, but Vanzetti had always hated his tendency to quote and talk about movies. While they’d been talking, he’d succeeded at getting one hand resting on the desk next to his hip without Vanzetti noticing. He longed to slide his fingers a few inches to the side so that he could pull his weapon and shoot the man, but he couldn’t yet.    
  
“Come on... we both know how this ends, _ Karl _ . You kill me, I go down for the whole thing, and you burn those books from the hidden drawer in this desk before anyone but me can see them.”    
  
‘There’s no way you even know what’s in those books, DiNozzo.” Vanzetti returned, his voice holding a hint of doubt now.    
  
“I don’t?” Tony lifted the shoulder of his still up-raised arm in a half shrug and admitted, “You’re right, I guess I don’t know anything about your whole operation. I don’t know anything about Rafferty, Trip, Soccata, or Bierden being involved either. I guess I wouldn’t know about how you’ve been conspiring to kill people under your protection for years either.”    
  
Vanzetti’s expression went flat. “You don’t know anything. You can’t.” He said, his tone a demand. Tony smiled internally. Karl sounded like he was trying to convince himself now. One more push, and he was pretty sure he had this one.    
  
“It’s an interesting code you’ve got there in those books, you think that one up yourself?” Tony inquired, mildly. “Or was that Bierdan who came up with that?” Tony went out on a limb, knowing that Howard Bierdan wrote and solved codes as a hobby. It paid off to be nosey and observe people, he thought to himself, not for the first time.    
  
“DiNozzo, you don’t know jack! I made that code. Bierdan got the whole code thing from me.” Well shit, Vanzetti looked reassured now. That hadn’t been Tony’s goal. What could he do to push Vanzetti back off kilter and keep him talking? When in doubt, ego.    
  
“So you are the big boss. Came up with the whole scheme and the recording system for it all by yourself? That’s rather impressive.” The dominant theme to Tony’s tone was mocking, but he managed to sneak a little bit of impressed underneath it; just enough, he hoped, to get Vanzetti chatty again. Karl had always seemed like the type of guy that wanted people to respect-- or was it fear?-- him, and would go to unusual lengths to get it.   
  
“Damn right, I’m the one in charge!” Vanzetti growled. “Now sit your ass down on that desk and put BOTH your hands back above your head, DiNozzo.” Vanzetti kept the gun trained on Tony with one hand while he stepped left and picked up the phone handset from the table next to him. He fumbled with the keypad and held the phone to his ear.    
  
Tony could just barely hear the tinny voice from the phone receiver answering the call. “Yeah,” Vanzetti replied, “It’s me. Get over here, get everyone over here, now. There’s a small  _problem_  we need to take care of standing in my study.” The voice returned an answer Tony couldn’t decipher, but Vanzetti nodded in reply and said, “Yeah, good idea, bring it, and the tarp too,” and slammed the phone down.    
  
Turning all of his attention back on Tony, he returned both of his hands to his weapon and glared. Tony gulped. The man actually managed to look intimidating, finally.   
  
“So... _ exactly _  how much do you know, Tony?    
  
“Oh, little of this, little of that. Lot of a few things.” Tony hedged. Vanzetti narrowed his eyes.   
  
“You’re going to tell me before I kill you, you know. I need to know how much you know about my operation. But hey,” Vanzetti smiled, a crazy glint in his eyes, “if you tell me before the others get there, I’ll kill you quickly. You wait for Rafferty, you know it’s not gonna be pretty.”    
  
Tony nervously swallowed again. Yeah... Rafferty wasn’t really the pretty type. Well. Fuck.   
  
“Guess I’m out of options and out of time, huh?” Tony allowed. “Guess it’s time for Plan C then. It’s been nice knowing you, Karl.” Tony cocked his head to the side and slowly brought down a one hand to shoulder height, fingers pointed in a mock gun shape. “Oh wait! No it hasn’t.” Tony smiled and pointed his pretend gun.    
  
The loud bang that followed took only Vanzetti by surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/60134.html where additional author's notes are available.


	18. Win Some, Lose Some... Shoot Some

“Jesus f*cking H-Christ on a g*d-damned pogo stick, Tony! PLAN C?! Plan C? You said we wouldn’t even get to Plan C!” Harry roared, waving his arms about himself, his hands flying around like deranged hummingbirds on a sugar high. Harry paused a moment to look down at the man who lay passed out at his feet, the dust and shards of a large decorative vase surrounding his body.    
  
“It worked, didn’t it?” Tony muttered, shaking a little from his own adrenaline spike. “Plus, you’re not actually Plan C--” Tony broke off as a small herd of gun-touting, black-clad men poured through the entrance to the room. “Oh hi, fellas.”   
  
“Tony-- how the-- why are there SWAT guys here?” Harry managed as he dusted off his hands.    
  
The mass of bodies still blocking the door parted and a shorter balding man entered. “They’re not SWAT-- they’re FBI.” He snapped. “How’s it going, DiNozzo?”    
  
Tony’s head shot up, his gaze focusing on the newcomer. “Fornell?” he accused incredulously. Harry shuffled nervously towards Tony.    
  
“Somebody pick up this mess!” The FBI agent commanded the surrounding men. Several of them holstered their weapons and stepped forward to check the body on the floor for a pulse. Finding it steady and strong, and realizing that Vanzetti was clearly conscious again, they hoisted him unceremoniously to his feet and began the procedure of arresting him properly.   
  
Harry watched the room warily. Leaning towards Tony, he whispered, “Did Sir forget to tell me something? Such as, perhaps, the whole depth and breadth of Plans C through, I believe it was, ‘F’, as commonly found in the acronym FBI? Also- Mr. FBI over there pronounces your name like it’s got the word ‘nuts’ in it? He’s met you, I see.”    
  
Oh yeah, Harry was fine again if he was pulling out the snide ‘Sir’s, Tony thought. Though it had been interesting to finally see what it took to rile the man his childhood friend had become. Tony inclined his head towards Harry’s ear and hissed back, “Hey-- don’t blame me for Fornell, I expected Franks-- and a whole lot less people.” Tony peered around the room, then turned to address the question to perhaps the only person who had the answer.   
  
“So, Fornell, if you’re here, where’s Franks?”    
  
Fornell glanced back at them from where he was supervising the beginnings of an evidence sweep of the room and offered, “He’s out waiting to pick up Rafferty and Trip, since this idiot here called them both and told them to come over with guns, shovels and tarps. Not too many legal activities that involve that sort of combination. So we think we’ve got a good chance of getting them off guard.”   
  
Harry started laughing and Tony paused in his thoughts to consider how much hysteria was evident in his tone. Hrm... maybe Harry wasn’t one hundred percent calm yet after all. Then again, the image of his former co-workers as shovel-touting, gun-slinging criminals was pretty funny now that they weren’t actually going to get the chance to bury his dead body with said shovels. Plus, he survived Plan B and Plan C, so he was doing pretty well tonight. Tony joined Harry in slightly hysterical laughter, appreciating the moment. Fornell took a second to look at them both like they were insane, then walked over to give instructions to someone on the other side of the room.    
  
A shot rang out. Everyone’s attention leapt to focus on the two officers who had been cuffing Vanzetti. They lay knocked back on the floor, Vanzetti now holding one of their firearms. Vanzetti glanced hurriedly around the room, the trapped look on his face showing that he knew his options were limited. He backed toward the wall, using his peripheral vision to aim himself in a direction where there weren’t any agents. The officers on the ground held up their hands and backed away slowly.    
  
Across the room, Fornell whipped out his firearm and aimed it at Vanzetti’s heart. Most of the other officers around him had taken up a ready stance as well. “Vanzetti, there’s no way for you to win this,” he cautioned.    
  
“Yeah, maybe. But there are a whole lot of worse ways for me to lose it.” Vanzetti snarled back. “And this way, I get a little bit of my own back.” Vanzetti continued sliding along the wall towards the doorway, gesturing with his pistol for people to move along out of his way as he went. He’d almost reached the door when Tony called out to him.   
  
“Hey, Karl! You really want to go down shooting? You’ve always struck me as a practical kind of guy- I didn’t think that had changed just because you turned out to be a practical criminal. I’m sure you’re just in it for the money, after all. Isn’t there something we can offer you?” Tony kept his voice even and lacking in judgment, hoping against hope that this wasn’t going to turn into a shoot-out.    
  
Vanzetti leaned on the door frame, shooting his gaze in and out of the room, gun still pointed at the agents inside as he assessed the empty hallway for getaway opportunities. “DiNozzo, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I have two choices here, die now, or run like hell and never show my face again. The man in charge isn’t going to let me live to talk, either way.”   
  
“So you’re not really the big boss, eh Karl?” Tony couldn’t quite resist taunting for more information, knowing the guy would never tell them more once he was more than 5 minutes post-concussion and not gunning for his life. Even if he wasn’t killed by the “man in charge”, he wasn’t the type to cave for a better sentencing deal. “Who is? Give us a name; we’ll get you under protection.”    
  
“Oh sure, protect me like I’ve been protecting people the last 3 years? There was someone before me you know! There will be someone who takes my place. He’s that good. You won’t even know.” Vanzetti sneered. He took a step into the doorway proper, but didn’t turn his back.    
  
“Karl, you had to care about saving people once, why not give it another try? Give us his name, we can stop him!” Tony reasoned. Fornell took a step forward, coming to a stop next to Tony.    
  
“DiNozzo’s right, Vanzetti. Let’s take this guy down together. You’re safe, we get the bad guy. Everybody wins.”    
  
“It won’t work.” Vanzetti proclaimed, his voice echoing hauntingly due to the resonance of the hallway he was half standing in now. Tony flinched. Creepy.    
  
Vanzetti nodded sharply once at him, and took off running down the hallway. Instantly, Tony and ten federal agents took off after him. Fornell could be heard radioing the men outside the house to warn them of Vanzetti’s approach. Harry was left, standing alone, suddenly conscious of noise his breathing made in the now-empty room.    
  
Abruptly, three gunshots crashed into the tentative silence, and the sound of men yelling followed. Harry slowly lowered himself into the nearest chair. He could hear that one of the men shouting was Tony, so clearly his friend was alive. Beyond that, he didn’t care anymore. In case he’d forgotten why he’d never become a cop, it was all flooding back now. The next few days were going to be interesting. Oh joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/60792.html where additional author's notes are available.


	19. Looking Through the Glass

Tony watched through the glass as Franks grilled Eileen Soccata. The compact brunette woman, who Tony had seen take so many of the shocks that came as part of the job with nothing but a calm aplomb, was not taking the interrogation well. She looked equal parts confused and betrayed at various points, and seemed to react largely by vibrating in place with repressed anger.   
  
All of her reactions seemed genuine, including her profession of innocence. Well, mostly. Some of her protests (like her insistence that she knew absolutely nothing) didn’t quite ring true, though, Tony was fairly certain she hadn’t been nearly as involved in Vanzetti’s scheme as Rafferty and Trip. They’d brought her in initially because she had been one of the two agents conspicuously not in the van when Shannon Gibbs died.   
  
It was looking like she hadn’t been heavily involved in the conspiracy, but that she’d been more observant then she was currently letting on about how much she’d seen of what was going on around her. Her suspicions had clearly run more deeply than her active participation. If they could just get all the information she had, they would at least have more evidence against the bigger fish in this investigation. As far as little fish went, though, Soccata was pretty close-mouthed so far.  
  
Her partner Howard Bierden, the second agent who had been present the day the van exploded, wasn’t faring as well in the next interrogation room over. Tony had stopped in to watch that one a few minutes ago, taking some amount of glee in seeing the shorter Fornell verbally attacking the six foot six Bierden. It brought to mind those little yap dogs that always went after their larger brethren with vicious energetic fervor. Howard had been shamefaced and near to tears, spilling his guilt like a little boy being chastised by his mother. Fornell had been merciless, going back at him time and time again, rephrasing the same questions, drawing more and more detail out of Bierden’s guilty conscience each time. Not exactly the way Tony would have approached the interrogation, but highly effective nonetheless.   
  
Tony turned back to the one-way glass covering half the wall beside him, and watched Franks take another run at shaking Eileen’s silence. Standing a slight distance across the table from her, the man was still a formative intimidating force, particularly when he pulled the move he was in the middle of right now. Tony managed not to flinch as Franks slammed his hand down on the table to emphasize his point; Soccata, being much closer to the action, didn’t.   
  
Franks spun and turned towards the mirrored glass, silently staring at it, as if he could actually see through it. Though his body language was otherwise calm, Tony could tell he was angry.The slight twitch of the fingers of his right hand, as if they were aching to form a fist, gave his emotions away. Given what Franks had looked like a few days ago when he was pissed, Tony was rather impressed by this current highly-controlled version of the man. Franks was a little rough around the edges, but so far in Tony’s dealings with him, he’d held up his end of every situation.   
  
That didn’t mean Tony wouldn’t have nightmares about staring down the wrong end of a gun barrel at Franks’s angry face looking ready to pull the trigger. Tony shook his head as if to shake off the memory of tearing out of Vanzetti’s house at a dead run after the man, only to end up stopping short because Franks was in the driveway already, staring Vanzetti down. It had been an abrupt experience, to say the least. Tony hadn’t been exactly sure when it had all gone to hell, but Vanzetti could probably have pinpointed the exact second he changed his mind about trying to run and decided on death instead -- that is, he could have, if he’d still been alive to talk about that day.   
  
After the stunningly clear moment of facing Franks from over Vanzetti’s shoulder, trying to figure out a way to get out of Franks’ line of fire and finding nowhere to dive, the rest of day’s memories went kind of fuzzy in Tony’s recall. Tony can remember Vanzetti darting forward. He remembered deciding that a live concussed criminal was better than a shot one, that it looked like Vanzetti was going straight for Franks’ throat and trying to tackle Vanzetti to the ground, but avoid the line of fire. He couldn’t remember which thought had come first, it had happened so fast they all seemed simultaneous. The end result had been Tony taking Vanzetti out at the knees moments after Franks had decided to shoot.   
  
Coordinated, they were not. Instead of catching Vanzetti in the shoulder, Franks’ bullet had gone straight through the man’s head. The trigger-happy feds behind Tony had apparently made similar decisions to Franks’, but a split second later, because another two shots from the other direction had joined the fray before it ended.   
  
Tony now had a small graze on his left shoulder that he considered his lesson in how dealings with the FBI turned out. He wouldn’t be forgiving Agent Sacks any time soon. Although Fornell still got points as far as Tony was concerned, since he’d been right there moments later yelling at the two agents for their stupidity in almost taking out Tony in the cross-fire. Tony continually tried not to like Fornell because the man annoyed him so much, but he had to admit there were some days Fornell amused the heck out of him too. Thinly disguised mother hen lectures delivered at high volume and in a caustic tone of voice always brought a smile to his face.   
  
At least Fornell had been courteous enough to wait until Tony’s shoulder gash had been treated before yelling at Tony himself for getting into the crossfire. Fornell had even been the one to give him a hand up from where he’d fallen, dazed with the adrenaline of the near miss, next to Vanzetti’s body. Things at that point got a bit fuzzier in his recollection. He remembered Franks glaring daggers at him -- for screwing up his shot? Tony wasn’t sure even now. Fornell yelling at those agents, yelling at the EMTs, turning with demands -- but not yelling -- at the medical examiner when he showed up. A fact that was explained later when Tony realized that the ME was NIS, not FBI, so apparently Fornell could even show a little cross departmental respect at times.  
  
Franks had spoken briefly with the ME before walking off. Huh... Tony wondered where he’d gone. Tony himself had been plunked down on the curb with a cute female EMT to work on his shoulder. He vaguely remembered making some flirty remarks to keep up the appearance of normalcy both outwardly and inwardly. Halfway through an innuendo and most of the way through having his shoulder bandaged, he’d looked around for Harry, suddenly realizing he hadn’t seen him since running after Vanzetti.   
  
As if his thought had summoned him, Tony looked up to see Harry walking sedately around the side of the house towards him. His friend looked a little beat. Harry glanced around as he approached, taking in the now-covered body, Tony sitting nearly shirtless with the wire he’d been wearing still haphazardly taped to his chest, and the attractive EMT putting the finishing touches on his shoulder dressing.   
  
“Tony... only you would find not only the most beautiful lady at a crime scene, but also a way to unabashedly monopolize her attention,” Harry commented wryly. Tony tilted his head up to look Harry directly in the eyes and shrugged his bandage-free shoulder.  
  
“Sorry?” He offered questioningly, an attempt at a playful smile plastered on his face.   
  
“Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry. That fixes everything.” Harry couldn’t help the bitterness in his tone. “Sorry about not telling me the whole plan too? How about sorry about getting shot?” He asked, his voice pitched low.  
  
“Yeah, sorry about that too.” Tony let his chin fall to his chest and took a moment to breathe.   
  
“Good.” Harry declared. Tony rolled his neck and lifted his head, gaze connecting with Harry’s again.   
  
“You still know how to plan a great adventure, Tony. I’m glad I came.” Harry admitted. “But from now on... I think maybe I should stick to hearing stories of yours. When this is all over, remind me to tell you why I never became a cop.”  
  
“Awww.” Tony pouted in mock disappointment. “You’re going to go back to being a boring ol’ butler, then? Not going to apply to NIS or the FBI? I mean, I can see why you’d avoid applying to be a Marshall now... I’m pretty sure I’m done with them too--”  
  
“That so, DiNozzo?” Franks broke into their banter with the ease of someone who doesn’t care what he’s interrupting. He looked Tony straight in the eyes. “That mean you need a job?”   
  
“Ahh-- you offering?” Tony managed.  
  
“Tony, I’ll just --” Harry looked quickly at the scowl on Franks’ face, “... be over there,” he finished with a tiny hand wave in the direction of the area least overrun with officers processing the crime scene.   
  
“You pulled off the plan pretty well, DiNozzo,” Franks volunteered, his gaze causually wandering the surrounding area.   
  
“Um... thanks?” Tony responded. They stared at each other a moment. “Did you have to bring in Fornell though?” he added, barely keeping the whine from his voice.   
  
“Got something against him?” Tony opened his mouth to speak -- “Aside from the fact that he’s a jackass?” Franks interjected.   
  
“Uh... no. That’s pretty much it.” Tony admitted.   
  
“Well then kid, don’t go work for him when he offers you the job. Come work for me instead.”   
  
“Fornell’s gonna offer me a -- “ Tony paused, and mentally rewound the Franks’ last sentence. “Wait, you’re really offering me a job?”   
  
“Yep.”   
  
Tony levered himself up to his feet, turned quickly to give the pretty EMT one last wink, and raised his unwounded arm to give Franks a manly slap on the upper arm. Franks neatly side stepped the gesture and smacked Tony hard on the back instead.   
  
“Come on kid, let’s get you sorted out. The sooner we bring this whole thing down, the sooner you can start.”  
  
Tony snapped back to the present as Franks suddenly turned back towards Saccota and stepped up to the table again. Franks picked up and tossed down a file folder filled with photographs, causing some of the pictures to spill out haphazardly across the surface. Eileen actually flinched.   
  
Huh. Tony wondered what had caused that particular reaction. Franks clearly caught the motion too. He leaned down, looming again, and lifted each photograph one by one, watching Saccota’s face as he did it. Tony reached over to pull up a chair; he was interested to hear where this line of questioning went.   
  
Thinking of Kelly, he bowed his head for a moment, silently hoping this would be the break they needed to get to the man in charge of Vanzetti and make it safe for her to come out of hiding. After two days of nothing from Rafferty and Trip, they really needed something to move the investigation forwards.   
  
He lifted his head and focused on Franks again. And silently witnessed as Eileen’s angry composure finally fell apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/61591.html where additional author's notes are available.


	20. When the World Ends

For the first time in three days, Tony finally had a moment to sit down and reflect. He immediately thought of Kelly. Not that she hadn’t been part of his focus the last few days already. He and Franks had had multiple conversations on how to keep her safe, finally concluding that she should just stay out of the system for the moment until they could be sure that putting her back into it wouldn’t get her killed. So she’d stayed with Abby and the nuns, but that couldn’t last forever. Though, to hear Abby tell it, the nuns were seriously considering keeping Kelly because they adored her so much.    
  
One of the few things that they’d found out from Trip had been that Vanzetti hadn’t actually told any of the details of Kelly’s escape to the “man in charge” whoever he was. This much had been gleaned from an offhand comment Trip had attempted to cover for right after he made it. Tony privately wondered if Trip was holding what information he had for a later attempt at bargaining for his life from the big boss, because he didn’t seem intimidated at all by the thought of going to prison or any other charges they could lawfully level on him.    
  
But after Eileen and Bierden’s confessions, Trip’s few slipped comments, and Rafferty’s refusal to talk at all, the investigation was far enough along that the only thing they had clear was how very far they had left to go in untangling the situation.  Kelly was unlikely to be safe in the system any time soon, but she was just as unlikely to be safe resuming her normal life, out in the open.    
  
Somehow in all of the chaos of the investigation, the arrests, being cleared from a whole litany of possible charges beginning at obstruction of justice and ending at trafficking across state lines with a side of murder, Tony had forgotten that at some point, he was supposed to be saying goodbye to Kelly. That she was supposed to go with whatever family of hers that the state could find.    
  
Even though he hadn’t actually seen her in the last three days -- he’d been staying at NIS headquarters at Franks’ rather unsubtle request until the investigation unwound enough for him to be officially cleared -- he’d spoken to her a few times on the phone. He wasn’t going to ask how Abby had managed to hide the phone calls from tracing, he’d simply thanked her and updated Kelly in vague terms about the investigation’s progress. Kelly for the most part alternated between telling Tony about her adventures with the bowling nuns, and being so quiet that he wasn’t sure she was still on the phone until Abby spoke up in the background.     
  
He was worried about her. She definitely needed counseling at this point, something she wasn’t going to get until she had a more stable environment again. Which, of course, she couldn’t get until they’d wrapped this investigation. She was going to need it even more when Tony finally got the chance to break the news to her about her dad.    
  
Through the official channels available to them, Franks and Fornell had verified that Kelly’s dad had been missing back when Abby had passed on the message to Tony. What they’d since learned was that Kelly’s dad had been very briefly found -- so he had survived the mission, Kelly had been right -- and then he had been officially declared dead. His superiors weren’t heavy on the details, even when Franks inquired via NIS channels; all they’d managed to get was that the man had been in an undisclosed field hospital location which had been taken out by air strike. There was no body, so the funeral could be held any time family wanted. Family which, according to their records, consisted of an estranged father, period.    
  
In light of the fact that Kelly’s grandfather was alive, when she finally did come out of hiding, Tony was almost certain she’d be placed with him. Kelly herself had told Tony that she didn’t remember her grandfather, but thought that her mom had talked to him sometimes and that she might have met him once when she was too small to remember. Though he was blood, the man would likely just be another in the long line of strangers that Kelly had to grow accustomed too from now on.    
  
Tony looked down at himself in surprise, startled to find that he’d been subconsciously tightening his arms around himself, his hands locked on his opposite elbows. “Whoops. Not the least bit telling about your own history there, Anthony, oh no -  Yeah right...,” he muttered under his breath  Shaking out his arms, he assumed a more relaxed posture in the crappy government issue pretend-ergonomic chair.     
  
“Might be time for another trip to the gym,” he announced to the empty room. He’d been doing that a lot too, in the past three days - pretty much instead of sleeping. Sleeping in a government office building while waiting on eggshells for news of the investigation on which his and Kelly’s lives pretty much depended wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, something that could be called ‘restful’ anyway. Another few days of this, though, and he’d be absurdly low on mental and physical reserves, he knew from experience. Falling asleep on any even remotely horizontal surface such as tables in briefing rooms, even during briefings, low on reserves.      
  
He quashed the sudden desire to call up his dad, Harry, even Kelly - anyone that would understand a tiny part of his current situation and emotional state. Of course, his dad would just tell him to suck it up and trust Franks. Harry would probably be sympathetic, but awkward over the phone, the relief in his voice that he’d been cleared and allowed to leave two days ago tangible. Harry still felt like he’d abandoned Tony to the wolves even though Tony had asked him to go when he’d gotten the opportunity. Harry had gone, with many lingering professions of willingness to testify to anything and everything whenever required.    
  
Kelly... Kelly would just be scared. He was in no state to maintain what he was starting to think of as his “Dad” facade. He had to be strong in front of her, positive, he had to be the only rock she had left in the maelstrom that her life had become. He’d picked up that responsibility and now he wasn’t sure he could ever put it back down. Every time he tried, he worried about what would happen to Kelly if he did.    
  
Even thinking of her safe with her grandfather didn’t stop the worry. Would her grandfather be a good man, someone to get her the help she needed, to love and support her? Would he think she was resilient, funny, smart, and kind of amazing even in the face of crisis like Tony did? Would he want to smile every time she did? Would he try to vault over a car hood just to catch a frisbee and fall on his ass, just to make her laugh like Tony did? Well okay, Tony mentally allowed, that was probably not something a grandfather was required to, he might throw out a hip or something. This was a man who didn’t talk to his own son - was he a person who should be raising a 6-year-old girl? Not that he had the monopoly on not communicating with family for years at a time, Tony was forced to admit, if only to himself. But that was different. Tony’s father hadn’t been fit to raise a child within Tony’s memory of the whole of his childhood.     
  
Oh no - what if Kelly’s grandfather was like his own dad? Memories of being left alone in expensive hotel rooms and figuring out room service at an early age popped into the forefront of his mind. Suddenly, Tony couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Kelly in her princess persona in charge of a line of hotel staff, deftly charming them and ordering them to place dishes in particular places in the room, perhaps coaxing sundaes and movies into appearance by adorableness alone. Okay, so maybe she was adaptive like he’d been back then.    
  
They had a surprising amount in common, actually. He hadn’t been much older than she was when he’d lost his mom. There hadn’t been anyone chasing him, nor had his mom been murdered, but the loss of his mom had been devastating. Her situation had to be worse. But at the same time, the comparison gave him a place to look at her trauma from and really examine it to the best of his ability for the first time.  His dad’s helpless inability to say two words in a row to him after his mother’s death suddenly made a scary kind of sense it never had before. What could you say to a child about that? How could you explain the unexplainable? How could you ever feel worthy to be the only person they had left to depend on? But how could you give the responsibility to anyone else?    
  
But... how could he not? They wouldn’t let him keep her. He was nobody. Just the wrong person in the right place at the right time to save her. Maybe. He hoped to keep saving her. But maybe to save her, he had to make sure she got safely back to her grandfather.    
  
Tony shook his head and rested his chin on his hand. He slumped and caught his face in his hands, rubbing his palms against his eye sockets. His eyes hurt. So tired. With all the speed of a glacier melting, he fell against the table top, his head coming to rest on his arm.   
  
“My job,” he hesitated, shooting a hand out to grip the side of the table in deference to the insistent feeling that he required an anchor of some kind. “My job... is to catch the bad guys.” Pushing through the exhaustion, he painted a rakish grin on his face. “It’s what I do.” His smile melted onto the table with the rest of his energy.   
  
“... halfta catch the bad guys....” he whispered and closed his eyes. The image of Kelly, false blond hair just starting to show her red roots near her scalp, her smile wide, flickered past his eyelids for a moment before sleep hit him with the force of the oncoming storm he’d been dodging for weeks now.     
  
When Franks came looking for Tony a few minutes later, he stopped in his tracks. Turning around quietly, he left the room in the same state he’d found it, Tony’s soft snores following him into the hallway. He could tell DiNozzo his news in a few hours. The kid needed sleep more right now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted at: http://riazendira.dreamwidth.org/65873.html where additional author's notes are available.


	21. Not a real chapter - but do me a favor and answer this question

Hey folks, is anyone still reading this? I'm trying to gauge potential interest in me finishing it for November's novel writing challenge. Drop me a hello in the comments if you'd like that to happen. If no one cares anymore I may just give up finally and post my notes as previously promised in case of fic abandonment. Readers, it's in your hands. Speak now!


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